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 Two-and-a-half hours into their journey from Sabratha in western
Libya, they reached a European ship deployed to rescue migrants.
"I raised a white flag to the ship in a sign of peace," Shaybi told
Reuters by phone this week from the Italian city of Genoa, where his
daughter Sajida, who has the rare blood cell disease aplastic
anemia, is now undergoing tests. "My friend told them that we have a
sick little girl."
The story was quickly picked up on social media as an illustration
of the tragic consequences of Libya's health system collapsing amid
poor security, a funding crisis, and chronic shortages of staff and
medicine.
Problems only seem to have become more acute since a U.N.-backed
government arrived in Tripoli in March aiming to end the armed
conflict and political turmoil that has plagued Libya for years. It
is gradually trying to assert its authority, but remains opposed by
some factions on the ground.
Shaybi said he decided on the boat trip after visiting Tripoli
Central Hospital earlier this year and finding it "in a disastrous
condition, one hundred times worse than before. There was no nursing
staff at night, no medicine, and no health care at all."
The hospital is now in a sorry state, afflicted by power and water
cuts and starved of resources.
Three months ago the emergency room was shut after one male nurse
was shot and another was beaten. The morgue has run out of space
because staff are waiting for authorization to bury unclaimed
bodies. Of 250 foreign nurses, just 40 are left, and female Libyan
nurses are afraid to work because of security threats.
"We are only conducting emergency operations now," General Manager
Mukhtar al-Habbas told Reuters. "We have no anesthetic, sterilizing
materials, or medical gauze, so how we can work?"
It is a similar tale across Libya. About half of the country's 159
hospitals are either closed or barely delivering services, said
Haroon Rashid, a World Health Organization official.
Before the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya had
some of the best health indicators in the region, he said, though it
was also unusually dependent on foreign doctors and nurses, using
its oil income to employ them on generous terms. But some 80 percent
of those workers have left, depriving medical facilities of
specialist care needed in neonatal units or to treat high rates of
casualties from traffic accidents.
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The WHO says indigenous malaria cases have recently resurfaced in
the south, and it fears a re-emergence of polio as well as
increasing resistance to HIV drugs due to users switching between
different brands because of lack of supply. In a country where
substance abuse is widespread, there are no detoxification centers.
Political turmoil, corruption, and financial pressure caused by a
steep fall in oil earnings have cut off funding to health
facilities, yet Libya's underlying wealth means foreign donors are
reluctant to give.
"Everyone is saying that Libya is a rich country, and they may have
frozen assets but they have nothing in hand," said Rashid.
At the Tripoli Medical Centre, the largest state hospital in the
capital, metal donation boxes have been placed at the entrance and
the walls of the pharmacy are bare. Some equipment has been switched
off by contractors who haven't been paid, said General Manager
Mohammed Ehnaish, and the remaining nursing staff are threatening to
leave over lack of salaries.
"The treatment is non-existent," said Mohamed Maylood Al-Sabouh,
whose wife is a cancer patient there. "I buy from pharmacies and
sometimes I have to go to five to six before I can find the
medicine."
(Additional reporting and writing by Aidan Lewis in Tunis; Editing
by Clelia Oziel)
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