However Beirut residents are facing another nasty health crisis from the fumes of uncollected garbage. In Jdeideh, east Beirut, aerial views of white bags of garbage winding through the streets look like ski slopes.
Doctors say a spike in respiratory diseases is just one result of eight months of uncollected waste piling up on streets all over the country, according to an ABC report published Friday. Worse, there is no solution in sight as the waste rots, spawning just about every bacteria imaginable. The hideous miles of garbage has prompted political debates and plenty of heated political discussions, but to no avail. Meanwhile, Lebanese doctors and medical professionals are alarmed by the spread of disease throughout the population.
It is not just Sacré-Coeur, a community outside of Beirut, that is literally sick from tons of garbage. Hospital beds across Beirut were already full this winter, partly due to an outbreak of swine flu — which the nation’s health minister, Wael Abou Faour, says claimed four lives in February. Doctors say patients suffering the effects of exposure to the rotting garbage are adding to a healthcare crisis.
The garbage issue erupted in July when officials decided to close the primary landfill for Beirut and the surrounding coastal governorate without providing another source for garbage disposal. Despite thousands of people taking to the streets in protest, officials, who tend to wall themselves off from the general population along relatively clean streets, have done little or nothing to address the situation.
Meanwhile, public protests have waned as more residents decide that officials in Beirut are simply ignoring their pleas for public sanitation.
Politicians in that country are preoccupied with an abrupt decision by Saudi Arabia to cancel $4 billion in aid, most of which was earmarked for the country’s small army. Government officials have announced several potential solutions to the crisis that never materialized,leading to talk of dissolving the current government
On Thursday, Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s told his cabinet that “there is no need for the government to stay” if it can’t resolve this crisis, according to information minister, Ramzi Joreige. Thus far the only plan to deal with the stink is to keep streets inside Beirut proper relatively rubbish-free in hopes of pacifying the public. To do that, the waste is being pushed to the city’s periphery where it piles up along roadsides and along the banks of the Beirut river.
“In some cases, they start burning the trash, and then we see widespread breathing difficulties and skin infections,” said Rachid Rahme, the director of Sacré-Coeur’s emergency and critical care units. In December, Rahme said cases of gastroenteritis were up 30% compared with such illnesses in 2014. More recently, he said admissions rates at Sacré-Coeur’s ER department jumped 25%, and routine symptoms are growing more severe. It is difficult to get firm health statistics in a country that doesn’t pick up its own garbage or provide basic services, but the trend in mortality rates is alarming, according to doctors.
