The children being treated at Beirut’s St. George Hospital built an extended family with each other, painting and dancing together when they had the energy and rubbing each other’s backs when they vomited after chemotherapy sessions. Now, these cancer-stricken children are struggling to keep up with their treatment, and preserve the bonds they developed with each other over sometimes years of treatment, after a powerful blast ripped through Beirut last week and took their hospital — their home away from home — with it. The blast destroyed four hospitals in Beirut, including St. George, one of the largest in the country, leaving many dozens of Lebanon’s youngest cancer patients with nowhere to go for care.

Source: New York Times August 12, 2020 15:29 UTC