The Rafik Hariri University Hospital (, RHUH) – formerly known as Beirut Governmental University Hospital (BGUH) – is the largest Lebanese

public hospital A public hospital, or government hospital, is a hospital which is government owned and is predominantly funded by the government and operates predominantly off the money that is collected from taxpayers to fund healthcare initiatives. In almost al ...

, located on the outskirts of southern

Beirut Beirut ( ; ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, just under half of Lebanon's population, which makes it the List of largest cities in the Levant region by populatio ...

. The hospital's main building has a maximal capacity of 544 hospital beds; it comprises seven floors with three annex buildings a 50 bed hotel and four villas hosting staff dormitories, outpatient clinics and administrative services. The hospital is affiliated with the

Lebanese University The Lebanese University (LU; ) is the only state-funded public university in Lebanon. It was established in 1951. The university's main campus was originally located in Beirut, but a few satellite campuses were opened due to travel restriction ...

History

On February 2, 1979, the Lebanese government decided to build a governmental hospital with a 500-bed capacity on a publicly owned property in

Bir Hassan The Sands of Beirut were a series of archaeological sites located on the coastline south of Beirut in Lebanon. Description The Sands were a complex of nearly 20 prehistoric sites that were destroyed due to building operations using the soft sand ...

, Beirut. The decision was based on technical studies made by the minister of Health and the Minister of Public Works and Transportation. Due to the advent of the

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

, which significantly weakened the public health care sector, the construction project had to be postponed until 1995 when then

prime minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

Rafik Hariri Rafic Bahaa El Deen al-Hariri (; 1 November 1944 – 14 February 2005) was a Lebanese businessman and politician who served as prime minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 to 2004. Hariri headed five cabinets during his tenu ...

laid the cornerstone; construction was finalized during 2000. The hospital was inaugurated on August 2, 2004 with a cost of 121 million US dollars. As of June 2022, the number of doctors at the hospital was down to 15, whereas 60-odd doctors had worked there a few years prior, and approximately a third of the nursing staff (128 of them) had also left the hospital since the Lebanese economic crisis began.

Controversy

The RHUH staff went on strike on various occasions due to the repetitive delay in receiving their financial dues, the staff expressed consternation since the hospital's administration did not provide consistent causality for the delay in payment of their salaries which has been occurring since 2010. The hospital staff also complained that the hospital administration withdrew many benefits such as the social security school grants, and withholds health insurance bills from its employees. In March 2022, hospital staff forced their way into the headquarters of the Lebanese Health Ministry headquarters in Beirut to protest the deterioration of their working conditions and to demand that they be paid their salaries."Rafik Hariri University Hospital employees force their way into Health Ministry,"
''L'Orient Today''.

References

External links

Rafik Hariri University Hospital
{{authority control 2004 establishments in Lebanon Hospital buildings completed in 2000 Hospitals in Lebanon Lebanese University