RHUH now treating emergency cases only

Staff protest salary payment defaults

The Rafic Hariri University Hospital (RHUH) has stopped admitting regular patients and is only treating emergencies doe to a strike organized by its employees. The radiology, surgery, laboratory, and clinical departments were all shut down. Treatments are limited to the 95 patients currently staying at the hospital, and the dialysis service.

The hospital is suffering from a financial deficit, leading to difficulties in paying employee wages. Wassim Wazzan, General Director at the RHUH, said: “The tariffs of public hospitals are unfair, and do not match the costs of the services offered, especially when it comes to complicated and difficult cases.”

Wazzan said: “The hospital's revenues are not enough to cover its expenditures due to high operational costs that include medicine, food, machines and equipment, and staff salaries.”
Budget allocations from the Ministries of Finance and Public Health to hospitals were delayed this year, said Wazzan. These allocations are usually paid by March each year.

The RHUH is paying employees’ salaries on a monthly basis, Wazzan said: “We have paid the employees their basic salary this month, excluding only transportation fees which do not exceed $105.” He said arrears that have been accumulated from the retroactive effect of the public salary increase between February and July 2012 have not been paid.