Dr. Roger Sfeir

Dr. Roger Sfeir is one of Lebanon’s leading cardiovascular surgeons and has been a key advisor on national healthcare reforms. International bodies such as the World Bank and United Nations Development Program have sought his expertise for a number of studies. Executive sat with him to discuss recent developments in the sector and the problems that continue to beset healthcare in the country. Is there an over-reliance on private sector financing for healthcare in Lebanon? Provision of healthcare is nearly 90 percent private and the expenditures mainly go to these centers, so yes, it is skewed to the private sector. What are the implications of that? Well, we need to look at the financing, from where the money comes. Before 1998, the public hospitals were incredibly inefficient so in that year a law was passed called the Law of Autonomy of Public Hospitals, where they changed the legal structure of