South of Lebanon: “They stayed” - a healthcare system strained after 46 days of bombardments

In southern Lebanon, working around the clock, healthcare staff responded to near-daily influx of injured and killed people brought to the hospital. Patients, including children, arrived with severe injuries, including heavy bleeding, traumatic amputations, and complex wounds. Healthcare workers often feared that among the injured could be family members or people they knew.

“Healthcare staff in Nabatiyeh’s hospitals slept inside the hospitals for a total of 46 days,” says Tania Hachem, MSF medical program responsible. “Some couldn’t go see their families, while others had relatives staying with them in the hospital.”

In Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon, thousands were forcibly displaced following Israeli forces’ massive bombardment and then blanket evacuation orders. Yet, many families chose to stay behind, and healthcare workers remained at their posts, working round the clock to keep life-saving services running. At the Nabatiyeh Governmental Hospital, around 42 families, medical staff and their children, sheltered inside the hospital. Just a few kilometers away staff at the Najdeh Chaabiye Hospital were also responding to mass casualty events while sheltering inside the facility, as moving inside the city was extremely dangerous, due to ongoing strikes by Israel forces, and even obtaining basic supplies required ambulances to travel to other cities.

“Part of our emergency-preparedness plan was for everyone to remain inside the hospital, so no one had to go back and forth. Doctors slept here, and their children stayed with them,” explains Dr Mona abu Zeid, director of the Najdeh Chaabiye Hospital, Nabatiyeh, who also stayed at the hospital throughout the escalation. Patients injured by Israeli strikes would be brought in with devastating injuries, heavy bleeding and life-aletering wounds.

Sometimes children would come to the hospital with both their parents killed.”

Providing care while under attack

From 2 March, the World Health Organization reported near daily attacks on healthcare – a total of 147 - up until the recent 10-day ceasefire, damaging hospitals, killing over 100 and injuring 233 health care workers, including cases where teams were struck during repeated attacks on the same locations while responding to injured patients. At least six hospitals were forced to close, while many others sustained damage.

At Nabatiyeh Governmental Hospital, just hours after speaking with a paramedic, Dr. Ahmad received the body of his colleague - killed.

"We spent the morning outside together, just chatting,” explains Dr Ahmad Zreik, general medicine doctor at Nabatiyeh Governmental Hospital. “Then he left to respond to an emergency. He suffered severe trauma and was killed as a result. We had just seen him that very morning; we had just spent time together. Imagine, you see someone and everything is perfectly normal, until suddenly it isn't. He was a paramedic. He left and never came back. He returned in body, but without his soul."

Hospitals supported by MSF in Sour and Nabatiyeh sustained some damages due to strikes in close proximity. In Sour, Hiram Hospital, medical staff were wounded by shattering glass; in Lebanese Italian Hospital , bombings in the vicinity damaged medical equipment including kidney dialysis machines, and in Jabel Amel Hospital, medical staff swept up glass and reinforced windows after they were shattered by the force of nearby blasts.

The 10-day temporary ceasefire remains fragile, during which healthcare workers in hospitals are trying to rest as well as prepare in case hostilities resume. 

MSF continue to support hospitals, including Jabal Amel, Lebanese Italian in Sour/Tyre, Nabatiyeh Governmental Hospital and Najdeh al Shaabiyeh Nospital in Nabatiyeh, as well as Rafik Hariri Hospital and Baalbek Governmental Hospital among others, with donations, as well as trauma and emergency care.