A deepening economic collapse in Lebanon is contributing to a mental health crisis, experts say
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In Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli, protesters grabbed a man who tried to ignite a lighter after pouring fuel on his head. A Syrian vegetable seller in the Bekaa Valley died after setting himself on fire. In a suburb outside Beirut, bystanders pulled a taxi driver from a burning car after he set the vehicle ablaze.
A recent spate of self-immolation attempts in Lebanon have highlighted a growing mental health crisis being fuellled by the country’s economic collapse, experts say.
“Every year it gets from bad to worse. Every year we think the Lebanese people will get better but nothing happens,” said Ali, the driver who survived with burns, who told local media he had tried to immolate after he could no longer afford rental payments on the cab he was also living in.
Lebanon is experiencing tough times and even for a population renowned for coping, the past year has been a struggle.
The recent suicide attempts, all reportedly linked to economic anxiety, coincided with the 10th anniversary of the start of Arab Spring, which was fuelled by the economic frustrations of the region’s growing youth demographic but sparked by the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi.
And in Lebanon, experts say they are only one manifestation of a much larger problem.
“Looking at suicide rates as indicators of the mental state of the nation is unfair, as they’re really the tip of the iceberg,” said Joseph El-Khoury, a consultant psychiatrist at the American University of Beirut.
But a study he led confirmed that Lebanon’s past year of turmoil has produced a mental health crisis.
The university interviewed 2,000 people following the August 4 port explosion that devastated the Lebanese capital. These were people who had already lived through a year of economic collapse in which the currency shed 80 percent of its value and poverty rose to over 50 percent.
The as-yet-unpublished study found that 80 percent of respondents had symptoms of depression and anxiety of varying severity, while nearly 40 percent had symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder.
“The levels of stress and anxiety and depression in the society are much higher than you would expect even with covid and the economic downturn,” Dr El-Khoury said. “Very few countries have been through what Lebanon is going through all at once. This is more chronic, this is more toxic.”
With spiralling coronavirus cases pushing the health system on the verge of collapse – ICU beds are above 90 percent capacity nationwide – Lebanon’s mental health crisis has attracted far less attention.
But since a total lockdown in which people are allowed outside in very limited circumstances was imposed last Thursday, demand for mental health services, largely delegated to NGOs by the health ministry, has soared.
“Today we’re supposed to be on lockdown, at the free walk-in clinic we saw 18 people,” said Georges Karam, a psychiatrist with Lebanese mental health NGO IDRAAC, who said demand had doubled.
Likewise, calls to a local crisis hotline have nearly tripled compared to the same period last year. “People are struggling,” said Pia Zeinoun, clinical psychologist and vice president of Embrace Lebanon, the NGO which runs the lifeline.
Experts say that the biggest external factor negatively impacting mental health is the financial collapse. And with the government unable to agree on implementing reforms needed to unlock foreign aid, there is no respite on the horizon.
“It’s the economy, the economy, the economy. It’s a major blow for us, everyone is affected,” said Dr Karam. Things are not going to get any better, things will get worse because the economic situation is getting worse.”
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