On Saturday, a Lebanese doctor was forced to use a bicycle to reach a hospital in Beirut and complete the birth of a child, because his car ran out of gasoline.
According to The Eastern Herald correspondent, the obstetrician and gynecologist Zaki Suleiman was forced to use a bicycle to move from his home to Rizk Hospital, after his car ran out of gasoline, like many Lebanese who suffer from an almost complete loss of this substance.
In recent days, the crisis of losing gasoline from the Lebanese markets, which has been escalating for months, has intensified, following the exhaustion of gas stations’ stocks, which caused a transportation crisis in the country.
Suleiman posted a picture on his Facebook account, showing him wearing tracksuits and holding a newborn baby.
The doctor attached the photo to the caption, “Keep this picture, baby, one day your parents will tell you that your doctor came on his bike to deliver you.”
And he added in his comment: “Because you were born in a time of scarcity of gasoline, medicine, electricity, and food, in a country where 90% of its citizens lack a decent life.”
The picture caused an uproar on the communication sites, and the welcoming comments flooded with the doctor’s step, while other comments reflected a state of anger over the reality of the situation in the country.
In an interview with The Eastern Herald, the doctor said that what he believed was not a heroic act, as some portrayed it, but it was the easiest way to reach the hospital when his car ran out of gasoline.
He added that he resorted to this method because he refuses to wait for long hours and be subjected to humiliation in order to obtain gasoline, and he also rejects the logic of discrimination among citizens to obtain this substance.
The Lebanese use the term “queues of humiliation” to queue up for long hours in front of stations for months to get fuel, as this sometimes leads to bloody problems.
The fuel crisis is one of the most prominent repercussions of a severe economic crisis that Lebanon has been experiencing since late 2019, which has caused a financial collapse, and the lack of sufficient foreign exchange to import basic commodities, such as medicines and others.
The economic crisis has also caused a record rise in poverty rates in the Arab country, as the United Nations announced in early September that 74 percent of the population of Lebanon suffers from poverty.
On September 10, a new Lebanese government headed by Najib Mikati was formed, after 13 months of stumbling, following the resignation of the caretaker government headed by Hassan Diab on August 10, 2020, 6 days after a catastrophic explosion in the port of Beirut .
