Lebanese private hospitals demand fees from patients up front

Owners of private hospitals on October 1 agreed to postpone for only three weeks their decision to charge patients insured by the government admittance fees up front, exposing deep distrust of the government's pledge to raise funds to pay its debts.

"We have decided to suspend implementation of the decision until October 20 so that the concerned institutions can abide by the contracts they have with hospitals and pay their debts, dating back to the end of June 1996," the head of the union Fawzi Adaimi announced after an emergency meeting of the general assembly of Lebanese hospitals.

The institutions he referred to include the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Defense, the National Social Security Fund, the public social security fund for government employees, the internal security forces and some private insurance companies that are late in their payments.

The meeting was stormy, with representatives of more than 140 private medical institutions split three ways--a minority arguing for revoking the decision altogether, another faction campaigning for its immediate implementation and a third willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt until after the 1998 fiscal budget has been chartered by the government and approved by parliament.

Suffering from unpaid government debts amounting to at least 200 million US dollars, the union had decided to ask for advance payments from patients who would normally be treated at the expense of the government, with extreme emergency cases being the only exception.