In this op-ed, Professor Abdelbaset Elfitouri laments how Libya's rulers today have adopted a mindset that has led to the deliberate destruction of the country's health services, causing suffering or death for many.
However, he warns that positions, power and money cannot come to the aid of an urgent life-threatening emergency to anyone in Libya – including those in power, their friends and families.
"I have the means to travel at a moment's notice, and medical care for both me and my family is guaranteed at the world's best hospitals.
As long as I am safe, the others don't matter to me."
This is the foolish belief held by many of Libya's rulers today—a mindset that has led to the deliberate destruction of the country's health services. It has caused suffering for thousands of patients and resulted in the loss of dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of lives daily across the nation's cities and villages.
Such officials forget that a car accident involving themselves or a family member could trigger life-threatening emergencies requiring urgent surgery—conditions such as:
- Major trauma,
- Haemorrhagic shock, or
- Traumatic brain or spinal cord injury.
These are critical situations demanding immediate medical intervention and intensive care within a matter of hours!
Neither an air ambulance nor clinics in Tunis or Istanbul would be able to save the patient in time. It is the Tripoli or Benghazi Medical Centres, trauma hospitals, and other central and public hospitals across Libyan cities that the country's officials must support and upgrade to handle emergency and trauma services.
- The need for urgent medical care is not limited to accidents; a child might suffer from testicular torsion, a condition requiring surgical intervention within six hours of the onset of pain—otherwise, attempts to save the organ will fail.
Such a case cannot wait for transport to Cairo or Amman. - His pregnant wife might suffer a ruptured ectopic pregnancy—a condition requiring urgent emergency care at the nearest city health facility; otherwise, both the foetus and the mother would be lost. In such a case, hospitals in Dubai, Doha, or London would be of no avail.
- One of his parents might require emergency intervention for acute airway obstruction or a massive pulmonary embolism; any delay in accessing appropriate medical care could prove fatal.
- The Libyan official also overlooked the possibility that, at any moment—with or without an apparent trigger—he himself could suffer cardiac arrest, an acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), or an acute ischemic stroke. These are conditions that, without the necessary resources for Libyan doctors and medical staff to treat them, no one else could successfully manage.
- Not to mention the complications arising from scorpion stings, snakebites, or severe anaphylactic shock—conditions that can lead to death if antivenom or urgent medical care is unavailable.
In such moments, neither power, nor wealth, nor children will avail them; there will be only the pain and torment of this world and the Hereafter. May God not forgive them''.
Abdelbaset Elfitouri is Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Zawia University, and President of the Libyan Clinical Pharmacy Board.