Professor Sharaf Abu Sharaf, the head of the Doctors Syndicate in Lebanon, issued the following statement:
The specialized committee for the COVID-19 vaccine at the Ministry of Health has worked hard to study and prepare mechanisms for vaccinating citizens, and their efforts are commendable. However, the implementation has proven to be fraught with many issues regarding performance, organization, and a lack of transparency; it has been slow and chaotic. This has created a general impression in the health sector of negligence or undermining of its role as the first line of defense against the COVID-19 pandemic.
There have been numerous violations at various vaccination centers, which we have witnessed on television and in the media, where vaccination was extended to many categories that are not prioritized, and whose names were not registered on the platform. We have spent time responding to phone calls from colleagues, including doctors, dentists, pharmacists, nurses, and citizens over the age of 75, who have been unable to secure either a vaccine or a time and place to receive it. They contact us pleading for connections to ensure they get a place, which is unacceptable.
Family medicine doctors, general practitioners, anesthesiologists, and surgeons, as well as leaders from the health sector, have called the ministry's hotline with no response, or they are redirected back to the syndicate, despite the fact that the syndicate has played its role by registering names on the ministry's platform, which insisted on defining the time and place. The syndicate no longer has any role to play except for reviewing and inquiring.
There is undoubtedly intense pressure on the ministry officials, but matters cannot continue to proceed in this manner. The quick solution lies in returning to greater transparency and inviting the private sector, including the sports sector, to contribute to this task and participate in vaccination under the supervision of the ministry, otherwise we are heading toward a major disaster.
We have not yet started the second round of vaccinations, and the situation is becoming unbearable. We must accelerate the vaccination to prevent the proliferation of viral variants and to achieve community immunity exceeding 80%, protecting people from certain death and severe complications.
It is worth noting that 31 doctors have already died while treating COVID-19 patients, and hospitals are overcrowded, knowing that we have not yet completed vaccinating the first batch of prioritized individuals. The vaccine is our only hope to emerge from this dark tunnel, and the ministry must act quickly to involve the private sector, which has shown interest in contributing to rapid vaccination for its sectors, and we in the syndicate are ready to play this role. The lives of people are their right, and their treatment is both a right and an obligation for us; we must expedite our steps before the situation becomes intolerable.
