The Syndicate of Hospitals in Lebanon affirmed that it is not a party to the ongoing constitutional, legal, and political dispute that serves the interests of one team or another; rather, what concerns them is the continuity of operations in hospitals, which has become clear that the necessary pathway for that is the issuance of a decree by the Council of Ministers. They called on all ministers to attend the session on Monday, December 5, to make decisions that would ensure patients receive treatments and spare them any harm that may befall them.
The statement said: "President Najib Mikati has called for a session of the Council of Ministers on Monday, December 5, and he did well. The agenda includes items related to the payment of dues to hospitals for the year 2022, without which these hospitals will be unable to receive patients at the expense of the Ministry of Public Health, thus endangering many of them, especially patients undergoing kidney dialysis and those with cancer."
They considered that making this issue a hostage to political debates is completely unacceptable, pointing out that patients are not responsible for the failure to elect a president or for the current governmental situation and the powers of the caretaker government. Patients should not be taken hostage to this fruitless dispute.
They believed the core of the problem lies in answering the following question: "Is politics meant to serve the people, or are the people meant to serve politics?" The answer here is clear and leaves no room for interpretation: politics is meant to serve the people, not the other way around.
