A statement was issued by the media office of the Minister of Public Health, Firas Albaid, announcing that he had conducted a series of intensive communications in recent days to resolve the issue of hospital payments for dialysis. The situation has been addressed as follows:
- The Ministry of Finance has referred the payments for the first three months of this year to the Central Bank of Lebanon in preparation to begin the payment process.
- Currently, the Ministries of Health and Finance are working on preparing invoices for the following four months, which will be referred to the Central Bank as soon as they are completed in the next two weeks.
- After communicating with Acting Governor of the Central Bank, Wassim Mansouri, the opening of an account under the terms of the Central Bank to dispense the 1 trillion Lebanese pounds advance allocated to the Ministry of Public Health for settling hospital payments for dialysis patients has been expedited. The ministry will start disbursing funds from this advance at the end of next week to cover exceeding financial thresholds.
Albaid affirmed his commitment to "expediting the payment of hospital dues according to the agreed mechanisms within a period not exceeding six weeks from the deadline for submitting invoices." He stated, "It is a top priority for the Ministry of Public Health to secure patients' interests and their treatment circumstances, which is a shared responsibility between the ministry, hospitals, and doctors, and the ministry will not tolerate in any way any entity requesting patients to pay illegal financial differences."
