Pope's visit is a blessing for Lebanon's forgotten psychiatric patients

JAL EL DIB, Lebanon (Reuters) -Staff at Lebanon's De La Croix Psychiatric Hospital are delighted that Pope Leo's visit will give its carers and residents, often abandoned by their families, recognition at last.

Established in 1952, the church-run hospital is one of only a few mental health facilities in Lebanon, a country where people diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses can experience social stigma and where state hospitals are severely underfunded.

De La Croix is run by nuns from the Franciscan order, who care for around 800 patients. Leo will visit the hospital in Jal el-Dib, north of the capital Beirut, on December 2, the last day of his first trip abroad.

The building is being freshly painted and about 50 patients are practicing for a choir recital in his honour.

"His Holiness the Pope, just by visiting De La Croix Hospital, that's proof that he cares," said Sister Rose Hanna.

"There are many families who don't visit, or people who don't care about this marginalised group," she said.

LIVING BY A MIRACLE

The hospital has survived decades of instability in Lebanon but the last six years have been particularly challenging.

Lebanon's financial collapse emptied state coffers, the COVID-19 pandemic brought extra risks and the last two years of war left De La Croix dependent on what Hanna called "divine providence."

The Lebanese state gives the hospital $15 per day per patient, but Hanna said it costs $75 daily to fully care for each resident.

"How are we managing to live? I don't know. We're living by a miracle," she said.

Patients painted together in shared rooms, sat quietly in hallways and helped each other climb onto seats. Nurses and nuns laughed with female residents in the corridor.

"It's a message from the patients that they exist, they are still here, they can be seen and heard," says Chantal Sarkis, a doctor and vice-coordinator of the visit.

Mother Marie Makhlouf said the Franciscan Sisters were ready to welcome the Pope "with total simplicity".

"This grace that's coming to us is going to embrace us, change us, and make us feel that we are not abandoned at a time when we were really struggling," Makhlouf told Reuters.

"The Pope comes and visits us to tell us - 'what you are doing is sacred'."

(Reporting by Emilie Madi; Writing by Tala Ramadan; Editing by Maya Gebeily, Alexandra Hudson)