His name was Fawzia Fayad. He became the protagonist of Lebanon's news outlets when he appeared on a television in October 2021, clearing his head, begging authorities to do something to help those who, having cancer like him, can't get treatment, because they don't have enough money to pay for drugs and hospital stays. Lebanon’s economic and financial failure has also sunk the health system. With the cancellation of own funds it has lost 90% of the value of the dollar, pharmaceutical products and materials imported from abroad have increased by 80% and then all medical expenses. Some associations try to help the sick, but as the crisis worsens, their disability has increased. Fawzia Fayad died in March 2022 as he lost his last battle against cancer, becoming a symbol of this health drama for many Lebanese.

This is how Au Liban chronicles journalist Muriel Rozelier in the electronic magazine Middle East Eye. The photo written by Anwar Amro at the front of the article shows that four women, who could be middle-class from Bilbao or Baiona, report that cancer survivors and cancer patients can no longer wait. People who have lived like in the West, who have been given away without health service by the state as in a country impoverished or trapped by war when they get sick.
According to the Ministry of Health, 12,000 new cantzers are detected each year in Lebanon. Many of them who could save them to the crisis with proper treatment or at least extend their lives are now condemned to death. Firstly, many of them are diagnosed too late, delaying the visit to the doctor in the absence of money.

In Lebanon, the state made crak in 2019, unable to cope with the debt accumulated in previous decades. The great explosion that took place in August 2020 in the port of Beirut and the COVID-19 pandemic gave the last shot to the mortuary structure. The Central Bank of Lebanon, taking out a great scissor, started pruning all public services. As far as health is concerned, not only did it cut funds to pay citizens for medicines and treatments, but it also drastically reduced import permits for medicines from abroad.

An important fact: in this country 85% of the hospital network is in private hands and 15% of the public network is obsolete and has a reputation for corruption. Therefore, the hope of healing a patient in Lebanon depended on his money in the bank before the last crisis. The current "innovation" is that the comedy that once silently carried poor people has become a common practice in the middle class.

Private hospitals have increased rates, the State has reduced – when it has simply left nothing – the part that paid the patient for each treatment. We are talking, for example, about chemotherapy sessions ranging from $1,000 to $3,000. How can we cope with the devaluation of the Lebanese average wage in a country with less than $100 and a minimum wage of $20? We are talking about chemotherapy, let us not now mention the leading treatments for cancer in Lebanon, immunotherapy and other experimental trials.

In these situations, speculation prevails as opportunistic infections that spread under the protection of serious diseases. If the state reduces by lack of money the treatments imported from abroad, pharmaceutical trafficking and the black market are multiplied immediately, with partners of corrupt health professionals, piling up, hiding, increasing, illegally selling...

Many people suffering from other serious or chronic diseases, such as mental illnesses, such as the journalist Kareem Chehayeb Les pénuries de médicaments, a nouvelle source of tresse pour les Lebanese ("Shortage of drugs, a new source of insatiability for the Lebanese"), live the drowning of those suffering from cancer. Distributors of medical devices have accumulated remedies, arguing the difficulties in importing them, so pharmacies are forced to sell drugs by drip in cities and neighborhoods.

Patients and their families are condemned to go to increasingly distant pharmacies in search of drop or pill. In the end, they are often afraid of having to settle for a less suitable drug and that it will also have further side damage or that it will run out of the necessary daily dose. Although they produce less noise than other serious illnesses, it is not a joke that the problem of the mentally ill in a crisis situation… which causes even more mental illness.

In crises, man can manifest the most generous as his most infamous side, often many of the seriously ill and chronically ill in Lebanon have found palliative in solidarity networks. MeDonations is one of the first: After the explosion in Beirut, volunteers began to collect and distribute medicine as a bridge between the sick and those who wanted to help. They've been confined to the Internet with increased fuel. Since then, @medsforlebanon, @medsforleb and more.

The Lebanese diaspora, spread all over the world, seems to help the people of their country a great deal. Sometimes they use the prescription sent online from Lebanon to send a medicine that is not in their home country. Other times they manage to do it without a prescription. In most cases, associations act as intermediaries between what they need and what they offer. The medicines obtained are taken by travellers to Lebanon. Of course, we are talking about medicines that can be bought in pharmacies: medicines from hospitals are impossible to access.

For example, Thurayya Zreik is one of many who need chemical doses to keep the mind balanced in daily life. In her eagerness to help another person who is like her, she has put on her Facebook "Seroquel", which is used for schizophrenia, in a few doses. He soon answers a petition for his mother. Similarly, they operate on networks like Istagram. “The only way we have is to help each other,” Zreik told the journalist.

Begging and pilgrimage is the daily routine of serious and chronic patients in Lebanon. All Lebanese travel at a petrol station in search of a drop of scarce fuel. Even more so the sick and their family pharmacies.