Post-ceasefire, people in Lebanon still struggle to access health care

For returnees, large-scale destruction and harsh winter weather make it difficult to access basic services such as electricity, water, heating, food, relief items, and health care. Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams have been donating relief items such as mattresses, blankets, hygiene kits, and potable water, and are providing primary health care through mobile teams in Beirut, South, Nabatieh, Bekaa, and Baalbek-Hermel governorates. 

A long and uncertain road to recovery

The damage to these critical services has created a gap in medical care, and the needs in Lebanon have shifted from providing health care in shelters and gathering points for displaced people during the war, to providing health care in areas heavily affected by bombardments.

“Access to health care remains a challenge post-war,” says Sadie St. Denis, MSF deputy emergency coordinator in Lebanon. “Several medical facilities, including hospitals and clinics, have been destroyed or damaged, severely limiting access to health care for those in need. We are seeing many patients whose routine treatment for chronic diseases has been interrupted. And there is a huge demand for mental health care services as people return home.” 

OCHA estimates that approximately 115,000 people have returned to find their homes destroyed or uninhabitable, and have had to seek shelter elsewhere within their communities—staying in apartments belonging to family and friends, or renting houses if they have the means.

How MSF is responding in Lebanon 

MSF continues to deploy mobile medical teams all over Lebanon: four of them in Baalbek-Hermel governorate in the northern part of the country, six in the south (South and Nabatieh governorates), and another six are responding to needs across Bekaa, Mount Lebanon, and other areas. 

The mobile medical teams are focusing on areas and towns where newly arrived Syrians and Lebanese returnees are gathering in shelters or have found refuge in host communities. 

MSF teams have also reopened our long-standing clinic in Burj El-Barajneh, located in the hard-hit southern suburb of Beirut, after having to close its doors for two months amid Israeli bombardment. We have also reopened our clinic in Hermel at full capacity after limiting services to the distribution of medication for non-communicable diseases to ensure continuity of care during the war.

Since the ceasefire went into effect, MSF has provided more than 4,967 medical consultations in southern Lebanon, one of the regions most affected by the war, as well as 4,460 in Baalbek-Hermel and 1,326 in Beirut.