Organ Trafficking Between Beirut and Damascus: A Growing Threat Demands Immediate Action!

Lebanon Today

Since the economic crisis struck Lebanon in 2019, followed by a terrible deterioration in the value of the lira against the dollar, the features of daily life for citizens have changed, and its effects have extended to include all sectors, most notably the health and hospital sector.

Hospitals today have become an unbearable financial burden for people with limited incomes, after the costs of treatment and operations exceeded their ability to pay, amid the inability of the guarantor parties to cover the actual costs.

### From Need to Danger

Despite the passage of years since the crisis and the relative improvement in social security coverage and the cooperative of state employees, there is a striking and disturbing phenomenon that is still repeated to this day: the travel of a number of Lebanese patients to Syria to undergo surgeries at prices much lower than they are in Lebanon.

While the cost of some operations in Lebanese hospitals ranges between $1,500 and $2,000, the patient can have it done in Syria for no more than $700 or $800, which prompts many to take this medical adventure, without realizing that the “saving” may turn into a possible death trip.

### The Tragedy of a Lebanese Patient

In this context, one of the patients narrated to her horrific story, after she went to a hospital in Syria to undergo abdominal surgery.

The woman says that the Syrian doctor who received her forced her to sign discharge papers before entering the operating room, on the pretext that the procedure was routine, and then left the country after the operation, leaving the patient to face her inevitable fate.

After the doctor reassured her that the operation would not take more than two hours, she went into a coma that lasted eight days due to severe internal bleeding resulting from improper anesthesia and the absence of the lowest standards of sterilization. When she woke up, she found herself in a deplorable condition: infection in the wounds, internal and external bleeding, and multiple blood clots.

The patient adds: “The scene in the operating room was tragic… there was no sterilization, no clean tools, the sheets were stained with blood, and the doctor disappeared from Syria to Qatar before writing me any medical report to help me follow up in Beirut.”

The woman returned to Lebanon in poor health, and had to undergo long and costly treatments that exceeded many times what she would have paid if she had had the operation in a Lebanese hospital.

### Trade of Death: Human Organs “on the Road”

The most dangerous thing is what the patient later revealed about an offer her friend received inside a Lebanese hospital from a Syrian man named (H. A), who was there, and claimed his ability to provide a “kidney” from Syria for only $500.

According to her account, the man said verbatim: “We will secure you with a car, take you to Syria, do the operation, and you will return to Beirut… all for $500.”

He confirmed to her that the transfer is carried out illegally across the border, within an organized network that exploits the needs and poverty of patients.

### A Phenomenon That Calls for Urgent Action

This story is not just an individual incident, but reveals a dangerous phenomenon that is expanding in secret, as despair creeps into the hearts of the Lebanese and drives them to make reckless decisions that may cost them their lives.

Between hospitals that close their doors in the face of the poor, and those that exploit patients with exorbitant prices, the Lebanese patient finds himself facing two bitter choices: death at the doors of Lebanese hospitals or risking death abroad.

What is happening between Lebanon and Syria in terms of cheap medical tourism calls for immediate intervention from the Ministries of Health and Interior and the security services, not only to protect the Lebanese patient from falling victim to medical fraud or organ trafficking, but also to control these networks that manipulate people’s lives for money.

While some believe they are saving themselves by saving money, the bitter truth is that they are paying the highest price: their lives.