Dr Qassem Salah’s 6,500 patients include many with life-threatening conditions. His small clinic in Beirut’s Mar Elias refugee camp treats cancer patients, those in need of open-heart surgery and at least two people with acute schizophrenia.
It is operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), which supports up to 250,000 Palestinians in Lebanon. They are ineligible for state healthcare but priced out of the private market, says Salah: “There is no alternative for Palestinians.” Without Unrwa, he says, his most critically ill patients “surely will die”.
