14 June 2016
In May, UN Humanitarian Coordinator in Lebanon Philippe Lazzarini endorsed a MAP project submitted to the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund (HF). The grant - amounting to $249,000 - will allow MAP to contribute to the cost of advanced life-saving surgeries for Palestinian refugees from Syria for the next 10 months, as part of our ongoing partnership with UNRWA. It will also allow MAP to extend its support to partially cover the cost of very expensive medication for Palestinian cancer and multiple sclerosis patients from both Lebanon and Syria.
This support comes at a critical time for both UNRWA and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. UNRWA has been operating with a budgetary deficit of $81 million due to a lack of support from international donors, and in recent months has faced protests in Lebanon’s Palestinian camps, triggered by the agency’s health policy reform. These changes which required refugees to start paying between 5% and 20% the cost of secondary care hospitalisations: a service that used to be covered in full. Even though the updated policy promised, in turn, a 10% increase in coverage for advanced care hospitalisations, it was not well received by the Palestinian community in Lebanon.
The refugees’ fears of not being able to pay for hospital procedures and surgeries needed to save their lives and that of their loved ones is understandable. The cost of medical care in Lebanon is the highest in the Middle East and North Africa. With more than two thirds of Palestinians living below the poverty line (less than $6 per day) and their host country excluding them from many health or economic rights and benefits, Palestinian refugees have no choice but to rely solely on UNRWA to settle their hospital bills.
For more information about Palestinian refugees from Syria, and to sign our petition calling for their protection, click here.
This matter has been confirmed by those Palestinians who were assisted by MAP’s Tertiary Healthcare Fund over the past three years. More than 96% of the patients contacted after their hospital treatments stated that they would have not been able to pay for their life-saving procedure if it wasn’t for MAP and UNRWA’s support:
“The hospital asked us to pay $4500 when all what we had is $8. I was afraid that they will send my husband to prison,” said Rola*, one such patient, who was supported to receive vascular surgery. “I was relieved when I was told that MAP and UNRWA will pay the bill.”
This new UN grant will allow MAP to continue to give the most vulnerable refugees in need of advanced life-saving surgeries some sense of hope and relief that they will get the treatment they need. In other contexts, it is an inalienable right.
Additionally, almost all patients affected by some chronic and catastrophic ailments are faced with the burden of the high cost of medication. For example, the yearly cost of medication for multiple sclerosis patients is around $9,500 and that for some cancer patients exceeds $8,000.
I spend the whole month worrying and wondering if I will be able to secure the needed medication for the month’s treatment.
When we have asked for feedback, the majority of our tertiary care project beneficiaries talk about the need for assistance with the cost of medications not provided by UNRWA. “I can’t work and we don’t have any money. We sold our furniture and everything that we can get money from. Every month I have to go around trying to borrow money to pay for my medication,” said Ahmad, a cancer patient for whom MAP contributed to the cost of his surgery. “I spend the whole month worrying and wondering if I will be able to secure the needed medication for the month’s treatment. I am not even sure if I will defeat this disease at the end.”
Knowing that patients with such conditions will not be able to afford the needed treatments and medications, UNRWA set-up a separate fund, the ‘Care Program’, to further support them. Toward the end of last year, UNRWA approached MAP and sought its contribution to this fund, as the agency’s financial difficulties threatened the feasibility of offering this support.
For the next 10 months, MAP with the support of the Lebanon HF will cover 80% of the cost of medications for Palestinian patients from Lebanon and Syria with multiple sclerosis. We will also cover 25% of the extra cost of medication, in addition to the 25% covered by UNRWA, for patients whose yearly cost of medication exceeds $8,000. Hopefully, this support will reduce the frustration Palestinians feel as a result of changes to UNRWA’s health coverage, and will help save the lives of many Palestinian refugees.
*Names changed to protect identities