“We Call Him The Unknown Patient” — Inside Lebanon’s Only Hospital Burn Unit

BEIRUT – There is only one hospital in Lebanon where people with severe burns can be treated.

It is the Geitawi General Hospital, named after the Beirut district in which it is located.

On the morning of Oct. 8, all the lights in the intensive care unit suddenly go out. Machines continue to beep and flicker: heartbeats, oxygen saturation. The nurses pause briefly. Then the power comes back on and they continue with their work as if nothing had happened — gauze after gauze, from head to toe, changing the bandages of a man whose name they do not know.

“We call him the Unknown Patient,” says the surgeon.

This patient, admitted after an air strike, arrived with no documents and was unconscious. The man’s face is as charred as his body. So far, no one has been able to identify him. They are now trying with DNA tests.

A matter of time

On this day, Oct. 8, the war in Lebanon has lasted exactly one year. One year ago, the day after Hamas attacked Israel, Hezbollah’s Lebanese militia fired the first rockets at Israel. And Israel has been firing on their positions in Lebanon ever since.

But the war only really took hold in this country just over two weeks ago. First, Israel’s secret service exploded thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies, Hezbollah ‘s communications network. Then the Israeli army began a wave of heavy air strikes on targets in almost all parts of the country, including the capital, Beirut. Israeli ground troops were deployed. Israel has the upper hand in the region and destroying Hamas isn’t enough anymore: they want to destroy Hezbollah too.

In Lebanon’s hospitals, workers were prepared for a possible escalation. The 2006 war, which was triggered by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, was still fresh in people’s minds. And yet they were surprised. There are significantly more air strikes than in the last war. The bombs are more powerful. And more deadly. According to the Lebanese government, of the 2,100 people that have been killed over the past year, 1,400 have died since mid-September alone: to put it in comparison, the entire 2006 war took 1,200 lives. More than a million people have been displaced.

“Seven are dead. But my mother doesn’t know that yet.”

Suhawa, 50 years old and fully conscious, is lying in the bed next to the unknown patient. She was sitting with her family in the Teir Harfa garden, in the far south of Lebanon, three kilometers from the Israeli border. There were 15 people. Then, an explosion. Smoke, fire. “Two are dead. Two children are here in the hospital too.” Her daughter is sitting on the edge of the bed; she witnessed it all. It was the first day of heavy air strikes, she says, before everyone fled. Quietly, so that her mother doesn’t hear her, the daughter adds: “Seven are dead. But my mother doesn’t know that yet. She won’t find out until she’s over the worst.” Because that’s what the doctors say: Her mother can make it.

Turning into Gaza?

The skin is the largest human organ. We perceive our environment through it, feel touch, pressure, warmth and pain. The skin even helps people communicate, when we blush or turn pale. If the skin is slightly injured, it can heal itself. Sometimes a scar remains, sometimes no trace.

“You can hear the fighter jets long after they are gone.”

But if the skin is damaged over a large area, for example by a burn, the body goes into a dangerous state of shock. Without the skin, we are exposed to all sorts of intruders and the wounds quickly become infected. Without any clinical treatment, a severe burn means certain death.

This war, one year after it began, two weeks after it reached Beirut, has left the capital city in a strange state. Here, in the hospital in Geitawi, you can see how real the war is, and what it really means. But outside the gates of the hospital, in the city, it is both present and absent at the same time. While some parts of the city are being bombed, others are still relatively safe.

But fear is everywhere. The war has eaten into people’s lives: you can hear the fighter jets long after they are gone. You are not hit and yet, as many people here describe it, you feel like it’s only a matter of time before this place turns into Gaza.

Hardly any donations

The burn unit at Geitawi General Hospital normally has nine beds. There are currently 23. They have cleared an entire corridor to make room for burn victims, explains Sister Hadia Abi Chebli, co-director of the hospital. Clinics from all over the country are calling to bring patients in. Sister Hadia, 61, belongs to the Catholic Order of the Holy Family of Saint Maroun, which co-runs Geitawi Hospital. When she joined the hospital in 1983, the country was in the midst of a civil war. Since then, she has experienced three more. But this one, she says, is giving her a new kind of fear. She is scared of how long it might last.

They depend on donations to care for these patients, and — given the situation in the country — these have come primarily from abroad, particularly from European Christian aid organizations. At Geitawi Hospital, caring for a patient with severe burns costs an average of 750 euros a day. The Lebanese government reimburses half of the costs, albeit often with a delay of many months. The hospital has to raise the other half itself.

People see this as a war between Israel and Hezbollah. As if there were no civilians living here.

In the past, as a Catholic hospital, they have had no problems with donations. After the explosion in the port of Beirut, which severely damaged the building, they were able to rebuild the hospital so that it was in better condition than before. The money came primarily from Christian aid organizations in France and Germany. But since the beginning of this war, there have hardly been any donations at all.

Those out there, says Sister Hadia, don’t seem to fully understand what is really happening, even though the images from Beirut have been all over the world in recent weeks, even though everyone is watching. “People see this as a war between Israel and Hezbollah. As if there were no civilians living here.”

When the earth opened up 

A doctor comes to Hassan Anani’s bed, whose lips can be seen under a thick layer of ointment, his eyes are also visible, otherwise he is completely bandaged from the waist up: his arms are huge lumps of bandage, bandages around his torso, his head, his face. “It’ll all be fine!” says the doctor. “Sure,” calls Anani, the patient, “In a short time I will look as handsome as when I was a groom!”, he says while trying to wink at his wife, who is sitting and laughing at the edge of the bed.

Anani, 38, has been here for over a week, and although the burns are severe, third degree, there is improvement. He holds his phone between his huge bandaged hands and scrolls through the pictures until he finds one of himself before it all happened. Then he shows us an old white car, but only the rear: the front half has disappeared into a hole in the road.

Fire hit him as if it came from the underworld itself.

It was Friday evening two weeks ago, Anani was on his way to the sea. A huge thunder. Then just fire. It was the airstrike that killed the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. Anani was only a block away when the earth opened up in front of him. The pressure and heat must have spread through the underground tunnel system. Anani only remembers that the car plunged forward and fire hit him as if it came from the underworld itself. He remembers the insane pain as he fought his way out and finally managed to exit the car: people ran away from him, screaming with terror. “I must have been all charred.”

Someone finally took him on a scooter to a nearby hospital, where they wondered how he had even made it there, given how severe his wounds were.

“What the body can do under adrenaline,” says the doctor.

“It’s not adrenaline” Anani shouts. “It’s the pure love of life!”

Yesterday they were able to send one of the patients home; his skin had healed well. This means that they have two free beds again. One bed will be reoccupied in the afternoon.

In the evening, in the hospital, workers and patients listen to the news. Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has given a speech to the Lebanese nation. He has said the war is now at a crossroads. If Hezbollah does not surrender, Lebanon will face “destruction and suffering like in Gaza”.

Anani, the groom, has to stay in the ward for a while longer. In a few days they want to start transplanting pieces of his intact skin on his legs to the burned areas on his torso. Then, it will just take some time for the skin to heal on its own.