1.
GV Entrance to hospital and Phalangist sector.
0.05

2.
CU Hospital poster.
0.10

3.
SV Doctor examining patient with one leg on table and removing his trousers to show amputated limb. (2 shots)
0.38

4.
SV Patient being wheeled through ward.
0.53

5.
SV Patient in wheel chair playing table-tennis.
1.04

6.
SV Patient operating photographic enlarger.
1.12

7.
SV PAN Patients in wheel chairs sitting on front porch.
1.22

8.
SV Patients in wheel chair playing basketball.
1.31



Initials VS 19.15



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: INTRODUCTION: The Lebanese Foundation for the handicapped has opened a new hospital to cope with the wounded from the country's 19 month civil war which ended in November. It is in the mountain village of Beit Chebab overlooking Beirut, the country's capital. Buildings housing the hospital have been donated by the Lesser Order of Maronites, a sect of Christians who fought mainly on the right-wing side in the civil war.

SYNOPSIS: The new health centre is much welcome in a country still suffering from the efforts of that bloody war, in which about 60,000 people were killed and 200.000 injured. The hospital is still unfinished but a number of patients have already received help and treatment. Eventually the centre will have a clinic for 70 patients complete with operating theatre, X-ray, physiotherapy, orthopaedic and prosthetic units as well as an 80 bed rehabilitation war. The estimated cost of the centre is at least one million pounds sterling (1,700,000 US dollars).

Several foreign welfare organisations raised the money and the International Red Cross has provided the hospital with some of its medical equipment. There has been a shortage of medical personnel in the country but according to the Lebanese health authority many doctors who left Lebanon during the recent war are now ready to return. The new centre is run by the Sisters of the Cross.

Besides offering immediate treatment to their patients they also help them in readjusting to the outside world.

The Foundation is not the only institution of this kind in Lebanon. Last November the Red Crescent Society opened a new rehabilitation centre in west Beirut to help the war wounded with immediate treatment, providing artificial limbs and longer term assistance.