Saint George Hospital University Medical Center

Saint George Hospital University Medical Center (Arabic: مستشفى القديس جاورجيوس للروم الأرثوذكس or مستشفى القديس جاورجيوس الجامعي), also known as Al-Roum Hospital (مستشفى الروم), is the oldest Lebanese Christian founded teaching hospital in 1878, It is affiliated with Saint George University of Beirut and one of the three leading[1] Lebanese medical centres, located in Rmeil, Beirut, Lebanon.

Saint George Hospital University Medical Center
Geography
LocationRmeil, Beirut, Lebanon
Coordinates33°53′38″N 35°31′24″E
Organisation
FundingNon-profit hospital
TypeTeaching
Affiliated universitySaint George University of Beirut
PatronH.E. Metropolitan Elias Audi, President of the Board
NetworkSt George Hospital
Services
Emergency departmentYes
Beds300
HelipadYes
History
Opened1878
Links
Websitehttp://www.stgeorgehospital.org
ListsHospitals in Lebanon

Overview

The hospital configuration is a T-shaped fifteen-floor building currently housing 200 beds. It is affiliated with The Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Toulouse and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Poitiers.[2]

In 2005, a new state-of-the-art building was inaugurated. The rehabilitation and reconstruction of the 1968 building is underway (Phase II)- this new extension will house an additional 200 beds by the end of 2015, thus bringing the total number of beds to 400.

History

Saint George Hospital was founded in 1878 as a non-profit community hospital by Panoyot Fakhoury.[3] A member of the Orthodox community, he donated two rooms in his Gemayze home to be used as a clinic and in-patient facility.

A new 90-bed hospital was built in 1913, followed by another 275-bed facility in 1966. The current facility is a 200-bed hospital built in June 2004. By 2020, the hospital had 330 beds.[4]

On 4 August 2020, a series of explosions occurred about 1 km (0.6 mi) away from the hospital, at the Port of Beirut, damaging every floor of the hospital, depriving it of power, and forcing it to shut down.[5][6][7] Doctors and nurses were treating patients in a nearby parking lot.[5] Within hours, it discharged all its patients, some to other hospitals, and closed.[8] The building was severely damaged and considered too dangerous to enter.[9] The hospital's Director of Intensive Care, Dr. Joseph Haddad, was quoted as saying, "There is no St. George Hospital any more. It's fallen, it's on the floor ... It's all destroyed. All of it." The damage to the hospital was a severe blow to Beirut's healthcare facilities; a COVID-19 pandemic and over 6,000 injuries, as a direct result of the explosions, put great pressure on healthcare facilities.[10][11]

Although the hospital was forced to temporarily close after the explosion, enough restoration work was completed by the end of August to allow one floor to become operational again.[4][12] Chief Medical Officer Alexandre Nehme estimated that it would take more than US$40 million and about a year to bring the whole hospital back up to operational status.[4][13]

References
  1. "About Us". Saint George Hospital University Medical Center. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
  2. "Affiliation". Saint George Hospital University Medical Center. Retrieved 2021-01-14.
  3. "Saint George Hospital - University Medical Center". Archived from the original on 2011-07-27. Retrieved 2010-12-18.
  4. "After Beirut Explosion, Lebanon Faces Surge in Coronavirus Cases - WSJ". Archived from the original on 2020-08-18.
  5. Sewell, Abby (4 August 2020). "Hospital treats patients in park". Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  6. Hubbard, Ben; Abi-Habib, Maria (4 August 2020). "Beiruit: Explosion Report". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  7. Chulov, Martin; Safi, Michael; Borger, Julian (4 August 2020). "Huge Explosion rocks Beirut, Lebanon". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 4 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  8. Ramzy, Austin (5 August 2020). "What We Know and Don't Know About the Beirut Explosions". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 13 August 2020. Retrieved 5 August 2020.
  9. ""There's nothing left": Beirut doctors say hospitals were so damaged by explosion, they had to turn away patients". www.cbsnews.com. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  10. Cheeseman, Abbie (2020-07-31). "'This will get ugly': Lebanon's health system trapped between economic catastrophe and coronavirus". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  11. "We're the hospital of last resort': Inside the coronavirus wards battered by Lebanon's economic crisis". The Independent. 2020-04-10. Archived from the original on 2020-07-05. Retrieved 2020-08-06.
  12. "French GRIMP Firefighters Are Helping Restore Beirut High-Rise Buildings". 30 August 2020.
  13. "Donations - Saint George Hospital University Medical Center".
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