franceinfo visited two hospitals in Beirut and Rayak, where war wounded have been flocking en masse since the intensification of the Israeli attack in Lebanon and where caregivers oscillate between exhaustion, stress and insecurity.
Published on 11/10/2024 07:54
Reading time: 5 min The healthcare team at Rayak hospital (Lebanon), in the Bekaa plain. (SEBASTIEN LAUGENIE / RADIO FRANCE)
Massive Israeli strikes again affected southern Lebanon and Beirut on Thursday October 10. The open war with Hezbollah has already left more than 2,000 dead over the past year, three-quarters of whom are civilians. There are also thousands of injured people being treated in hospitals across the country.
In the basement of Geitawi hospital, a brand new establishment with shiny tiles at the reception and bright corridors, the burns department has barely ten beds, closed boxes, lit by neon, without windows, with the pungent smell of infected wounds in the air. Doctor Ziad Sleiman is a plastic surgeon. His patients were all hit by bombings.
“These are flame burns, from the shells. We have 50% burns with head trauma, 60% 4th degree burns with charred skin and sub-skin, muscles, everything… We thought about disarticulate the limbs, but we can’t do anything for him.”says the doctor. The patient Dr. Sleiman is talking about cannot even be amputated. His body is completely covered in bandages from head to toe and is most likely doomed, but no one knows his identity today.
Others, however, will soon leave the service. This is the case of Mahmoud, a 23-year-old soldier in the Lebanese army. He was hit by an Israeli strike on September 22, in his southern village, 20 km from the border with the Jewish state.
“I had finished my service, I was on leave. I was having coffee at a cousin’s house, the three of us were there when a bomb fell on us. My two cousins died and I was seriously burned.”
When asked if the café was run by Hezbollah, he replied no. “There are no fighters in my village, there are only civilians. If the Israeli army is doing this, it is to force us to leave our homes. But we will stay there, because it This is our land.” This soldier, once released from the hospital in a few days, says he is ready to take up arms against the Jewish state if the Lebanese army decides to go to war.
Mahmoud, 23, Lebanese army soldier, seriously burned after an Israeli bombing on September 22, 2024 in southern Lebanon. (SEBASTIEN LAUGENIE / RADIO FRANCE)
Doctors are also mobilized an hour and a half from Beirut, in the Bekaa plain, a region located in the mountains, also considered one of Hezbollah’s strongholds. The Rayak hospital receives twenty injured people per day on average. The hospital team is on the verge of exhaustion, as Dr. Toni Abdou tells us. “We have been transformed into a war hospital, most of the hospital staff, the doctors and nurses, have been living here for two weeks. We have set up dormitories.”
“We have a lot of stress, there is no security. There was a bombing 700 meters away, we had damage here at the hospital, broken windows, collapsed false ceilings… We manage .”
Dr Toni Abdou
at franceinfo
So far, in fact, the Rayak hospital lacks nothing. But he only has two months of medication left before him, which he must pay for in cash or by check. Among the wounded encountered, only civilians, no combatants. Were members of Hezbollah hosted here? The director of the establishment responds that he is above all a doctor and that he will always respect his oath to care for all those who need it.
Saoussane, 7 years old, treated at Rayak hospital (Lebanon), victim of multiple head trauma after an Israeli strike on September 23, 2024. (SEBASTIEN LAUGENIE / RADIO FRANCE)
Bedridden in room 235, Saoussane, a 7-year-old girl suffering from head trauma. Today, she can no longer speak. His mother recounts this day of September 23 when, “like every day, we were gathered on the family terrace, the children were playing as if nothing had happened. Suddenly I heard bombings, I came home with the little ones, the house fell on us. We no longer realized anything. Saoussane was next to me, unconscious.”
“I’m sad, devastated. My daughter was the engine of the house, she was a butterfly who jumped everywhere, sang all the time. We rely on God now.”
Saoussane’s mother
at franceinfo
A caregiver has been watching over Saoussane for 18 days now. His condition is stable, she said. But she does not know when the little girl will be able to leave the hospital.
