I saw some news online late this evening about something terrible. People who do not have any form of identification papers available for healthcare workers are not eligible to receive tests for the corona virus in Lebanon. Timour Azhari of Aljazeera came out with the topic in question yesterday, stating that the state-run healthcare system has implementations in place such that only those undocumented workers/people who are in need of ’emergency care’ were the only people in this situation who had the possibility to obtain professional care. Denying healthcare to those who would potentially need the care due to COVID-19 is downright deplorable, regardless of the circumstances.
It doesn’t help either that COVID-19 is only getting worse; the doubletime for the illness seems to be just under a week. In America (a far more advanced culture/society compared to Lebanon and many other MENA nationstates) we have the most cases of this terrible illness by a longshot; we have over 140k compromised patients compared to Lebanon’s roughly 440 compromised patients. At this point, it’s hard to say that we have a better healthcare system than they do, given our poor response time and late lack of mobility from our leaders in D.C. I can’t believe I just said that, but i’m starting to think it’s true. You know what makes it worse? Lebanon ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantees “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”, including the “prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases” (in Azhari’s words, 2019). We still have to pay for simple coverage! That gets a big yikes from me…
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/undocumented-struggle-access-coronavirus-tests-lebanon-200328114859620.html