With the pandemic raging through Lebanon, taking many lives on its lethal course, hospitals have been unable to cope and the government has proven not up to the challenge.
Many affected people are left to manage to survive the virus on their own, at home, with a crucial need for oxygen machines.
However, oxygen machines are not something you can find around the corner. Even hospitals are lacking these crucial machines, and the health ministry hasn’t been of any help to secure them to the affected people whose life depends on that.
Once again, it is the Lebanese people who are stepping up to help each other, there where the government is failing.
“Hundreds of oxygen machines are stored and blocked unjustifiably in public facilities, airports, and sports fields. Our corrupted system is choking us,” Baytna Baytak revealed in a post on social media.
The NGO added, “We the people, the frontliners, are saving lives.”
They are, indeed. They have rushed to organize themselves, form a team of health workers, and secure oxygen machines for people in their homes.
Baytna Baytak has been at the forefront of Lebanon’s recent crises, namely the pandemic, and also the catastrophe that has crashed Beirut with the explosion of August 4th.
At the shortage of oxygen tanks in the country, Baytna Baytak launched the initiative Lebanon Needs Oxygen in an extraordinary effort to secure oxygen to people needing these machines to breathe and deliver them to their homes.
The NGO team of health workers takes care of delivering the machine and instruct the affected person on how to use it.
So far, Baytna Baytak was able to secure over 100 tanks along with their provision of oxygen from suppliers in Lebanon and abroad. It has been heavily relying on donors to help them buy these machines.
They are currently aiming to secure at least 700 tanks. That’s if more donors, whether in the country or in the diaspora, could step up to help.
As briefly explained by Baytna Baytak, the process for the distribution of the oxygen machines is as follows:
1. Baytna Baytak receives a call through its call center: +961 79 139 537
2. It then ensures to take a doctor’s prescription
3. The team gets the oxygen machine ready
4. Nurses specialized in Covid-19 proceed with the distribution and help with the implementation of the machine at the patient’s home.
Patients at home can use the machine as long as they need it. When they no longer do, the NGO takes it back, disinfects it, and prepares it to be provided to another patient.
This is how they are managing with 100 tanks so far and expect that 700 more will help meet the demands, by rotation.
Certainly, it would be ideal to secure even more to cover the skyrocketing needs of them in the country with the staggering number of daily affection reaching the thousands.
Those able to contribute can do so via the donate page of their website.
Baytna Baytak, which means our home is your home, has undertaken several humanitarian initiatives ever since the pandemic started, arranging to provide free accommodations to the health workers fighting the coronavirus.
They have also worked on providing shelter to the people who got displaced by the Beirut blast, and on rebuilding Beirut.
We have a dedicated coronavirus section where you can find the latest news/updates about the pandemic in Lebanon, inform yourself with WHO-verified resources, and track the number of cases in Lebanon in real-time. Click here.
