Syrians lack medical care in Lebanon: Watchdog

BEIRUT: Syrian refugees in Lebanon lack access to specialized medical care such as dialysis and cancer treatment, forcing some to risk their lives to return to their war-ravaged country for health care, according to a report by Amnesty International released Wednesday.

Amnesty said tens of thousands of Syrians are unable to get hospital treatment in Lebanon, leaving their chronic conditions and serious illnesses untreated. The crisis is due to a lack of funding for medical care for Syrians who fled to neighboring Lebanon, where health care is privatized and expensive, Amnesty said. Some ill Syrians simply have been turned away.

The crisis adds another layer to the suffering of the 2.7 million Syrians who have fled the war. It also underscores how dramatically Syrian society has unraveled from the 3-year-old conflict.

More than 1 million Syrians have fled to Lebanon since the revolt against President Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011. Lebanon, a nation of 4.5 million people, has been struggling to cope with the massive influx, with many refugees in need of housing, education and medical care.

Malnutrition among children is one of the most dramatic problems, with aid workers saying starvation cases also are increasing in besieged areas of Syria. An estimated 10,000 Syrian children in Lebanon likely suffer from malnutrition, said Dima Ousta of the International Orthodox Christian Charities, a non-government organization leading efforts in dealing with the issue in Lebanon.

UNICEF says nearly 2,000 Syrian children in Lebanon are at risk of dying because of acute malnutrition if not immediately treated.

The UN's refugee agency subsidizes health care for Syrian refugees, but dwindling resources have forced the UNHCR to prioritize primary health care services and treatment of life-threatening illness.

Some privately funded hospitals offer health care to the Syrians and there are also several charity clinics, but it has not been enough.

"Hospital treatment and more specialized care for Syrian refugees in Lebanon are woefully insufficient," said Audrey Gaughran, an Amnesty official. She said Syrian refugees in Lebanon are suffering as "a direct result of the international community's shameful failure to fully fund the UN relief program."

The UN has appealed for $1.7 billion for Lebanon in 2014, and has received only a fraction of the funds needed to help the refugees.

Amnesty based its report on interviews with refugees, doctors and other health professionals.

One refugee, identified only as Amal, told Amnesty that she travels twice a week to Syria for dialysis, which she cannot afford in Lebanon. She travels by land and passes through areas where fighting between Assad's forces and rebels trying to overthrow him is still raging.

"I feel afraid to go to Syria, but I have no choice," Amnesty quoted her as saying.

White House: 7 million signed up for health care

AP President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, gestures as he speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington.

President Barack Obama celebrated a better-than-expected 7.1 million sign-ups for health coverage that he said should end the debate over whether his signature legislation should be repealed.

Mr. Obama announced the 7 million threshold that once was seen as unattainable, even as the number still could climb. People who started applying but couldn’t finish before the Monday midnight deadline can have extra time, as do potential enrolees whose special circumstances kept them from signing up in time.

“The Affordable Care Act is here to stay,” Mr. Obama declared in a feisty Rose Garden speech the day after the deadline for Americans to enrol.

The 2010 passage of the Affordable Care Act has been the No. 1 legislative achievement of Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Eager to deny Mr. Obama any kind of legislative legacy, Republicans have bitterly opposed the law which they say swells big government and represents an unprecedented federal intrusion in the U.S. economy.

It remains unclear how well the Affordable Care Act will work and whether its implementation will see Americans change their views on a law that remains unpopular and widely misunderstood.

About 50 million Americans lacked health care coverage as the law began taking effect, and supporters hope it will significantly reduce the ranks of the uninsured.

But the administration has not said how many of those who already have signed up closed the deal by paying their first month’s premiums. Also unknown is how many were previously uninsured, the real test of Mr. Obama’s health care overhaul.

In addition, the law expands coverage for low-income people through Medicaid, the government health care program for the poor, but only about half the states have agreed to implement that option.

The months ahead will show whether the Affordable Care Act will meet its mandate to provide affordable health care coverage or whether high deductibles, paperwork snags and narrow physician networks make it a bust.

After winning control of the House of Representatives in the 2010 elections, Republicans have voted more than 50 times to revoke or seriously undermine the program, widely known as “Obamacare.” Those bills have never made it to the floor in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The law is at the centre of competitive congressional races across the country. Michael Steel, spokesman for Republican House Speaker John Boehner, argued that the law was harming the American people.

TB control, care a collective responsibility

Islamabad: Tuberculosis poses a significant development and health challenge to Pakistani society with the World Health Organisation (WHO) putting the disease’s prevalence in the country at around 630,000 a year, one of the highest in the world, according to National Manager of the National TB Control Programme Dr Ejaz Qadeer.

Dr Ejaz Qadeer told this scribe on Sunday that Pakistan along with China, India, Bangladesh and Indonesia shouldered more than half of the total TB burden of the world.

“This indeed is not an appreciable situation. We at National TB Control Programme and partners consider the current scale and scope of TB control and care efforts in the country as critical and intense,” he said.

The NTCP national manager said the data coming from provinces indicated that some regions e.g. Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Balochistan and Federally Administered Tribal Areas have shown very low notification rates but others had sustained good notification rates and treatment outcome.

He said the partnership created around TB control and care in Pakistan had grown consistently in recent years.Dr Ejaz Qadeer said financing partners including government, Global Fund and USAID had shown faith and confidence in the programme and its provincial counterparts in post-devolution regime.

“Despite the challenges created by the decentralisation of the health ministry, the NTCP has focused on further strengthening provincial capacity on programme management and implementation. Yet surveillance and monitoring and evaluation systems have also been augmented simultaneously. During the post-devolution context, implementing partners have also exhibited remarkable team spirit and stood by the programme. Expansion in MDR-TB is yet another area, where public and private sector implementing partners’ collaboration has been exemplary,” he said.

The NTCP national manager said despite the resilience of the programme and its partners, programmatic challenges remained critical and strategic in nature. He said static notifications urged proactive work on partnership strengthening with public and private health sectors through PPM; continued expansion of MDR-TB care; further investment in strengthening capacity of provinces; ensuring quality of existing services particularly laboratory network and to financially sustain these interventions, sustaining a strategic coordination with Global Fund and other donors.

“Challenges are many, diverse and complicated yet not impossible to deal with. Our team is amazing, hardworking and passionate about its work; partners are confident of our steady progress and the government ever more committed to fighting TB resiliently,” he said.Dr Ejaz Qadeer said he believed TB control and care was a collective responsibility and entailed collective benefit.