Before he became like this, Muhammad was living a stable life “like any civil servant”. That life was “Merkelja” on the basis of a salary of one million and 700 thousand Lebanese pounds. In the days of prosperity, the amount was enough for the family of 6 to live the “life of the lords”, so that the expenses were not expensive, and the most that bothered him was the petrol expenses to leave his house in Barja to his place of work in Beirut. However, it was “covered”.
Disease is not what hurts, but what hospitals and the state do to us (Marwan Bou Haidar)
“Hide the disease”
The children grew up with that salary, and when their concern for living became less and he became closer to comfort, he got sick. It was not initially taken into account that the pain he suffered and is still linked to was “the disease will lead you”, until the result came positive. That was regarding a year and a half ago, when Muhammad’s life was turned upside down. He had to make an extra effort to confront: the house expenses that increased with the collapse of the price of the lira and the meager salary and the cancer that struck one of his lungs before moving to the other and his back at the present stage.
Every 21 days, the family gathers to ask: “In Dua or what’s in it?”
Muhammad began his new life with illness, so he had to add to the family “the expenses of medicines, x-rays, and treatments in the hospital.” However, the start was not “difficult,” he says. On the psychological level, Muhammad did not find it difficult to accept the disease, as “I saw the growth of my faith.” On the financial level, he was better able to manage his medical affairs, as the contributions of the State Employees Cooperative Fund to which he belongs cover the cost of his hospitalization and medicines. However, the reality did not go so smoothly, as the acceleration of the collapse led to a rise in the cost of hospitalization and the cost of some medicines used by cancer patients, while the coverage of the state employees cooperative no longer suffices. For nearly six months, Mohammed has been paying an additional bill to the cooperative. In the beginning, the amount was 1,400,000 pounds, and “it was within it,” then this amount began to increase every 21 days, which is the date of chemotherapy, “without understanding what that increase is.” From one million and 400 thousand to one million and 700 thousand – which was equivalent to his salary at the time – to two million and 200 thousand to 135 US dollars, and 185 dollars he paid a few days ago to complete the penultimate session, “one million Syrian pounds of which I obtained from an association and the rest of the amount from people.” ».
From the private to the government… the private
Muhammad does not pay all those dollars instead of the price of the medicine, so until the present moment the medicine is still subsidized by the Banque du Liban, but rather he pays them instead of the supplies used in treatment and hospital stay… without counting the cost of the PCR examination that he performs every 21 days before the treatment date And the cost of the monthly medicines that Muhammad needs, which amount to 4 million pounds.
At the beginning of each month, Muhammad needs seven million pounds for his treatments in the hospital and at home, hundreds of pounds increase with the date of each session, which is equivalent to four salaries from those he receives from the state. Added to this is the “colored picture” that he performs every three months, “which last time cost three and a half million.”
Muhammad pays 7 million pounds per month instead of the cost of his treatments
Until Muhammad completes his sixth session of the second phase of treatment, he does not know what the nature of these increases will be. However, he is not able to withdraw, because “cancer patients cannot switch doctors and hospitals,” especially since the treating doctor follows a certain protocol.
The only time that Muhammad tried to leave the private hospital where he continues his treatments was when the accountant informed him that the cost of 20 radiotherapy sessions amounted to 15 million pounds. Then he felt helpless, and told the doctor that he was not able to take the treatment because he did not have the price. Then, “the doctor asked me to go to Beirut Governmental Hospital, where he follows up patients there.” Muhammad was surprised by the cost of the treatment, “as ten sessions are priced at 1.4 million and 400 thousand pounds.” He was also surprised by the difference that he is forced to pay in the private hospital in order to receive treatment that is no different from that in the “government.” However, this did not last long, as Muhammad quickly returned to the private hospital “following the ten sessions lasted for a whole month due to the continuous failure of the machine, which prompted the doctor to add 4 sessions for compensation.”
Illness and hospital greed forced Muhammad to knock on the doors of charities to collect the cost of his treatment. He did this because he did not find anyone by his side, as he did with other cancer patients, “neither the ministry nor the state per se.” He knocked on many doors, and when he broke down, he found only the “Sports City Road”, where the Ministry of Public Health is, but he did not find anyone. The medicine announced that I would complete his treatment, and he told me that it is not currently available and that I should call at another time.”
This short experience was the epitome of the state’s treatment of cancer patients left behind, at a time when “the countries of the world are preparing cancer patients for the end of life, while here we are sharpening the pill instead of treatment.”
Muhammad did not want to get here – to the Shehada – but illness, state indifference, and the greed of hospitals pushed him to do so. “I am not a thief. I am an employee. But this is how I went,” Muhammad added with a sigh of relief.
The difference between the cost of treatment in the government and the private sector is huge
The man’s anger today is not from maliciousness, as much as it is from his illness with this “junk state”. It is not the disease that hurts, but rather “what hospitals and the state do to us.” It is a pain that renews every 21 days, “Where we live every session on our nerves, me and my children, and the question is often: in a medicine or what is in it? In both cases, the obsession is the same as securing money to collect it, and the hospital often insures it… by blackmailing us at the cost.” However, no one is doing anything, while the state is subject to private hospitals and a group of importers who lock up medicine in their warehouses and take advantage of the pain of 29,000 cancer patients who are continuing their treatments today.
Today, there are only two solutions for Muhammad, either “the state takes over the import of medicine and chooses one place for our treatment,” or “they throw us into the sea,” although following a year and a half of humiliation he finds himself closer to believing that “the easiest is for that country that Accept that private hospitals draw our blood by dying or being thrown into the sea.”
Muhammad is only one of thousands of patients who are being humiliated today at the gates of hospitals. They die psychologically before they die from the loss or the high cost of the drug. He and they are the victims of this state – the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Finance and everyone concerned with the drug file in the state – which is submissive and complicit with the importers’ squad, hospitals and pharmacies.