Following AUBMC’s startling and stark statement, Judge Abir Safa issued an order, according to the National News Agency (NNA), requiring the Internal Security Forces (ISF) to provide the American University Of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) with some of the confiscated fuel.
The amount that is supposed to be distributed to AUBMC is 5,180 liters of diesel fuel (mazut). Similarly, this order allocates the same amount of fuel to the Rafik Hariri University Hospital.
Such decisions can temporarily assist the hospitals in the short term, and, in this case, the short term might merely equate to one week or even a few days, yet can save lives.
The fuel shortage in Lebanon is not only impairing the function of AUBMC, but it is also crippling other hospitals. One major hospital in Beirut even announced that it can no longer treat patients due to the fuel shortage.
Health workers in Beirut even took the street in a make-belief medical emergency scene to showcase how dramatic the situation has become.
It has become overtly obvious that Lebanon’s hospitals are nearing an imminent collapse, and, if those in power do not alter their decisions – or indecision –, the hospitals and the country could be entering a period of inexorable mayhem.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army continues to relentlessly raid stations for hidden fuel across the country.