Deputy Prime Minister Health Minister Ghassan Hasbani revealed that the Ministry is developing a classification for hospitals in a bid to improve hospitalization status. He stated that a decision was issued by the Chamber of deputies last February on the regulation of the work of medical beauty Centers. According to the law, the existing Beauty Centers are given a 6 month period to regularize their legal situation as of the date of the publication of this law. However he stressed that the Ministry has not waited for the end of the said period.  It is closing continuously centers in which cosmetic surgeries are carried out without abiding by rules, or that threatening the health of citizens.

Hasbani, during an interview with “Voice of Lebanon – Achrafieh”, reminded that a decision was taken on the prevention of surgical operations that require a general anesthetic in day hospitals and that another decision was issued on the prevention of Surgeries that may cause complications in case the clinic or hospital doesn’t include an intensive care division. These regulatory actions reduce risks.

Hasbani stressed that many illegal clinics were closed, one of which has been issuing falsified certificates and referred them to the competent judicial authorities. He stated that the Ministry is not able to supervise everyone. Therefore, the citizen has to play a major role at this level and report on any unlicensed center that is carrying out plastic surgeries by calling the hot line of the ministry 1214. Hasbani noted that there is a kind of exaggeration in the social media that are trying to compete among each other, which affects negatively on the medical sector and tourism.

On the question of the death of Farah Kassab, Health Minister announced that the Ministry has carried out investigation, based on which it has sent two letters to the General Prosecutor and the Order of Physicians in Beirut to accelerate the investigation process and informed them about its investigation. The Ministry also addressed clarifying questions to the Syndicate and gave it a period of 15 days to answer them.

On the question of financial ceilings in hospitals that sometimes end in the middle of the month Hasbani noted that there is a limited ceiling of money at the disposal of the hospital, and we should sometimes raise the financial ceiling to deal with emergency cases. In this context, he mentioned the work with hospitals to put a mechanism to draw up a timeline line for non-emergency surgeries and gave the example of the United Kingdom where some open heart operations are set to be carried out after three months.

Hasbani has not denied that financial ceilings used to be set without standards, and assured that he has put a scientific formula to determine these ceilings, and when the budget of 2017 is approved, he will submit to the Council of Ministers a draft decree to distribute the ceilings in a fair and scientific way. He noted that hospitals are characterized by their performance and not by their financial ceiling. The improvement of this performance is done through supervision. Hence, the role of inspection doctors is being enhanced along with private companies charged with supervision.

As for governmental hospitals, Hasbani said: “governmental hospitals are independent at the financial and administrative levels but they are under the supervision of Health Ministry. Governmental hospitals managed by Boards of Directors are facing big challenges, and the second issue is that these boards of directors are subject to politicization when it comes to appoint a new board of directors. We redistributed the financial aids to these hospitals in a legal way.”

Concerning Bouar Governmental hospital, Hasbani stated that the Council of State has brought to a halt the decision of former Health Minister Wael Abou Faour according to which he has appointed a committee to the administration of the hospital. The current board of Directors continues working until the appointment of a new board of directors. He added that he has submitted to the Council of Ministers a draft decree to appoint a new Board of Directors about one month and a half ago. However, this has not been included on the agenda yet.”

At another level, Hasbani noted that an application on smartphone is being developed to enable citizens to identify empty beds inside hospitals. This application will be launched within a month as a first trial in Beirut and Mount Lebanon.