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COVID-19, the economic crisis, and the Beirut blast: what 2020 meant to the Lebanese health-care system

2021; World Health Organization; Volume: 27; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.26719/2021.27.6.535

1687-1634

Georges Mjaess, Aya Karam, Roy Chebel, Georges Abi Tayeh, Fouad Aoun,

Health and Conflict Studies

Lebanon has faced numerous challenges in the last three decades that have greatly impacted its health-care system, which has been historically disjointed first by the civil war, and second by the arrival of significant numbers of Palestinian and Syrian and refugees. Although Lebanon has tried to absorb these systemic shocks and recover, its health system has continued its slow decline and highlighted by events in 2020. The fragility of health-care systems worldwide were demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic that emerged in 2020. Protective measures that are essential to a health-care system (i.e. standardization of processes, analysis of adverse events, accreditation, etc.) are insufficient for handling unforeseen events. Lebanon suffered a hattrick of simultaneous events during 2020 the economic crisis, the Beirut blast, and the COVID-19 pandemic which sorely tested its ability to orchestrate recovery efforts. These events have accelerated the slow demise of the Lebanese health-care system into a disastrous free fall. The after-effects of this series of events on the Lebanese health-care system have meant it is on the verge of collapse. Is there a possibility the system will endure and be able to orchestrate recovery efforts? Any progress to health-service sustainability re quires that lessons be learned from other countries in restructuring the basics of the health system, in order to develop effective crises management plans. It is only through planning for the unexpected that a country stands a chance of surviving the public health crises that Lebanon has been unfortunate enough to suffer.