Before ceasefire deal, childhood cancer patients in Lebanon battled disease while under fire

(27 Nov 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
++CLIENTS PLEASE NOTE: EDIT FILMED BEFORE ISRAEL-HEZBOLLAH CEASEFIRE DEAL AGREED++
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Beirut, Lebanon - 15 November 2024
1. Various of cancer patient Carol Zeghayer walking around with her IV in Children’s Cancer Centre
2. Various of Zeghayer seated on bed
3. Various of Zeghayer's mother showing photos of her daughter before she got cancer
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sindus Hamra, mother of cancer patient Carol Zeghayer:
"We have a way with her (when it comes to the war). We don’t let her live the effects of war and the airstrikes. We tell her this is a sonic boom and there is a second one, she waits for it. But of course she gets scared. She is just a child. At the start she used to cry the second she heard the sound (of an airstrike). If she was alone in her room and they hit, she got so scared and started screaming. But she got used to it. Now she tells her sister, 'stay calm there is another one'. But at the same time there is fear. She asks me: ‘Mom, where is that? Was that far?’”
5. Various of Zeghayer and her mother in learning room in Children’s Cancer Centre
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sindus Hamra, mother of cancer patient Carol Zeghayer:
“The thing I worry most about in this world is that I won’t be able to give her chemotherapy. Especially because she still has something called LP that she has nine of. If for any reason I can’t provide that to her, the cancer will come back. Her situation is very tricky - her cancer can spread to her head if I can’t give her the chemotherapy. I don’t worry about everything that’s happening as long as I can give her the chemotherapy.”
7. Various of Dolly Noun, a paediatric haematologist and oncologist examining Zeghayer
8. SOUNDBITE (English) Dolly Noun, a paediatric haematologist and oncologist:
“We don’t know how long, you know, we are going to be able to get the medications. What’s happening is mainly it's affecting our patients, sometimes physicians. Many physicians have had to relocate their houses. They’ve had to be separated from their parents, from, you know, physicians and obviously patients, to be isolated from... I know physicians who work here who haven’t seen their parents in like six weeks because the road is very dangerous.”
9. Various of Noun examining Zeghayer
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Dolly Noun, a paediatric haematologist and oncologist:
“They are living, many people, in the same house and you know that this is not appropriate for patients who are getting chemotherapy who have low immunity, you know, to live with 20, 30 people in the same house. So first it's putting them at risk for infection. Obviously it is affecting them psychologically and mentally. You know for a few days we've had patients who were admitted for x or y reasons, we couldn’t send them home. They had no place to go. We've had patients getting admitted for panic attacks. It is not easy.”
11. Noun standing with patient Asinat Al Lahham
12. Various of Al Lahham walking around centre
13. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Fatima al Lahham, mother of cancer patient Asinat Al Lahham:
“The fear was the road coming here, with airstrikes on Ouzai, Dahiyeh. They even hit Aramoun (where they are staying) a few days ago. The terror that the girl is feeling from sonic booms or strikes, she is getting really frightened.”
14. Exterior of Children’s Cancer Centre
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeina El Chami, Children’s Cancer Centre's fundraising and events executive:
16. Various of Al Lahham leaving centre
STORYLINE:
The 9-year-old's face brightened when she spotted her playmates from the oncology ward.
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