– The cost of treating a psychiatric patient varies between £90 million and £150 million, and not just one time
Drugs in Lebanon are cheaper than nerve drugs and easier to obtain
– Suicide cases are on the rise and the financial crash has closed mental health wards in several hospitals
The “Asfouriya” that the late Sabah Asfouriya sang was love, fun and laughter. What the Lebanese are experiencing today is al-Asfouriya in the pathological sense of the word.
Al-Asfouriya is popularly derived from a formerly known psychiatric clinic in Lebanon. Today, however, the populations of the “Cedar Land” have become prey to physical and psychological illnesses, at a time when the countries of the civilized world are launching awareness campaigns for mental health.
In Lebanon, which launched the slogan of its transformation into an “Oriental Hospital” years ago and has witnessed a hospital renaissance at all levels, the status of specialized clinics has been strengthened, setting up wards in private hospitals dealing with mental health of patients, and several awareness campaigns were launched before hospitals plummeted with the lira.
Social institutions have also emerged that take care of addicts’ affairs, treat them, and secure ways to care for them through specialized programs to get them out of the drug loop.
But the last three years have turned the healthcare sector upside down. At a time when European and Arab countries were announcing awareness campaigns coinciding with the spread of the ‘Corona’ epidemic to ensure the safety of those forcibly detained in their homes and to address the effects of the isolation they were going through, the Lebanese lived through double tragedies: the collapse of their economic and psychological conditions, the collapse of the hospital sector and the conversion into dollars of what was left of it, and the interruption of essential medicines, especially nerve drugs, which had a wide spread.
And what has begun to appear in a more serious form, coinciding with the diffusion of cases of suicide in an ascending manner for some time following factors of social, financial and psychological pressure, is the diffusion of drugs in an open form and many times this that was a few years ago, especially Lebanese hash, and narcotic pills of all kinds, this is where the problems start to overlap.
Not all psychiatric patients need to be admitted to specialized hospitals. However, there are cases that require specialized treatment in a hospital and under the supervision of a specialist.
The current dilemma after the collapse of the hospital sector is that there are families who are no longer able to provide care for their patients in hospital after its cost has become very high in dollars.
While the cost of treating any patient started at three million pounds and was then equivalent to two thousand dollars, it has become equivalent to between £90 and 150 million. A family is still waiting to get the money to treat one of their patients in a specialized hospital. Note that this treatment is performed regularly and not just surgery, which means that the patient must be hospitalized on a permanent basis.
Currently, the family has no choice but to secure alternative medicines to clinical medical treatment, and the cost of these medicines has become very high because the price of a pack exceeds $200, and the medicines are no longer available in Lebanon for special cases. but I am now requested by Turkey or Egypt.
The second problem is that hospitals have closed their medical and psychiatry departments due to financial constraints, which has increased the pressure on hospitals that are still able to guarantee the needs of patients and have faced increasing demand, which it also pushes them to increase the amount of care, particularly since the insurance companies do not cover these costs, these treatments, and that the official guarantor bodies and institutions are no longer able to ensure what hospitals require in terms of increased rates for doctors specialized in this field.
The third problem is that due to the deterioration of the financial and economic life of the majority of Lebanese, many of them resort to taking tranquilizers. The story usually begins with a visit to specialist and sometimes non-specialist physicians, who prescribe sedatives of two types: a long-term treatment and a fast-acting sedative for worsening nervous conditions, for sleep, or to calm agitation severe in some patients.
For years, specialized studies have been talking about a high (and sometimes haphazard) demand for these drugs, and the Lebanese have begun to talk about them easily and get them without a prescription.
However, before the economic collapse, the Ministry of Health and the Syndicate of Doctors and Pharmacists restricted the sale of sedative medicines with a doctor’s prescription, recorded the names of patients and monitored the number of packs of medicines sold.
However, as the chaos spread, everything became available and the taking of sedatives became common, and in Lebanon they are insured in various ways through pharmacists who evade the law and merchants who obtain them from abroad. Note that the price of the package has also increased due to the increase in the dollar price.
The fourth problem is that the collapse of the drug market, especially of sedatives and their high prices, has prompted some patients to turn to buying cheaper drugs in Lebanon, which do not require a visit to a doctor familiar with US dollars, nor psychological treatment sessions with an expensive bill.
And here another and more severe journey of torment begins, because it becomes a hellish spiral from which both the patient and his family suffer.
It is clear that the number of drug trafficking networks in Lebanon has increased and the security reports are proof of this. And since there are types of drugs starting from the lowest priced to the most expensive and highest “quality” the demand for them, especially pills or locally produced hashish, has also become high, especially since obtaining them has become easier. than getting them a box of sedatives through the pharmacy.
And with the onset of addiction to a new type of drug, the journey of suffering begins for families who are suddenly faced with an intractable condition to cure their patients of addiction.
In Lebanon there are effective associations to treat addiction and accompany the patient on his recovery journey, but the treatments are expensive.
These associations that provide free care need funding and help, and provide the best possible care and try to survive in the midst of financial rock and the collapse of social and financial provision.
Note that any special drug treatment in specialized hospitals costs up to $4,000 a month, and medical treatment takes two months, while treatment and social accompaniment takes about a year to monitor the patient and ensure his or her exit from the state of addiction.
Those who are unable to secure this sum remain powerless in the face of family members who veer towards wrong choices and fall victim to medical errors and the easy generalization of the culture of sedative drugs, despite all the justifications of poor economic and financial conditions.
Between psychiatric treatment, insurance of medicines, suicides and drug addiction… It is a Lebanese spiral par excellence in a moment of financial and social collapse, and families suffocated under the weight of living under disease, poverty and the loss of former possessions necessity necessity of life.
