Opening the doors to patients – and controversy

Lebanon’s largest public hospital, the very modern $150 million, 544-bed Beirut Government University Hospital in Bir Hassan, has opened its doors and hopes to be self-sufficient within three years. However, its critics have called it a waste of money in a sector that already has a surplus of hospital beds and question its viability in a system characterized by waste and abuse. The first in-patients will be admitted in this month but only 250 out of the full quota of 1,000 nurses and other administrative employees needed to run the out-patient clinics, labs, and radio therapy clinics, radiology, rehabilitation and pathology departments, have been hired. It could be said that the BGUH has come a long way in a long time. The first stone was laid in 1995. The main buildings and interior were finished by 2000 and by 2003, all medical equipment was installed. The 90,000 m2 hospital boasts