Dbeibeh’s Convoy Passes… While Muscular Atrophy Patients Remain Trapped Between Corruption in Health and Social Affairs!

From gradual muscle weakness to a slow death where children are buried before living their childhood, this is how the journey of muscular atrophy begins—a genetic disease that turns innocent bodies into fragile shells, while the silence of the state makes it a partner in the crime.

In Libya, it was said the disease was rare. But rarity did not stop its spread; it only prevented diagnosis and treatment due to the absence of expertise and specialized centers. With every cry of pain, the health institutions turned a deaf ear, leaving families alone to face a disease that devours the bones of their children.

Wasted Funds and Stolen Rights

According to the Muscular Atrophy Association, for seven years patients have received no support from the Social Solidarity Fund, despite the law mandating it, and although the accumulated assistance for each case has exceeded 45,000 dinars.

Seven years of neglect, while the Fund spent more than 1.8 billion dinars in just eight months! What kind of solidarity is this? What kind of fund denies a dying child a wheelchair while pouring billions into obscure channels?

This is in addition to the Fund’s payment of August salaries in mid-September, refusing to use the “Instant Salary” system, which guarantees immediate salary disbursement!

What Role for the Head of the Medical Services Authority?

Earlier, the Association of Patients asked: why doesn’t the head of the Authority for Support and Development of Medical Services come forward and explain to the public why 29 children with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) have not been transferred to the UAE to receive the gene therapy injection Zolgensma? Who is the real obstructionist? Is it the government that ignores the parents’ cries, or the Authority that procrastinates on its promises?

Every day without treatment = a life lost and a childhood buried before it begins.

The Association said: we are not asking for the impossible. We are demanding a basic right to treatment and transparency. We call on the head of the Authority to stand before the people and answer clearly: who is preventing our children from receiving treatment, and why?

Government Promises… and a Shameful Reality

According to the Association, the Minister of Social Affairs claims that people with disabilities live “in luxury,” while the head of the Solidarity Fund repeats that Dbeibeh “supports people with disabilities”! But what kind of luxury is it when patients take to the streets demanding a pill or a wheelchair? Is it luxury when the allowance is just 650 dinars—insufficient even for a week’s treatment? Or when home care support has been suspended for years?

Disgraceful Scenes

In front of the Prime Minister’s office, patients sat in worn-out wheelchairs under the blazing sun, from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. According to the Association, Dbeibeh’s armored convoy drove past them—without stopping, without even looking at them. As if they were ghosts. In that single moment, hope turned into disappointment, and faith into a painful question: what kind of homeland watches its children suffer and refuses to extend a hand?

Blood on the Government’s Doorstep

160 deaths in five years due to neglect. 160 lives lost to the incompetence of the state and the corruption of its institutions. Yet the gene therapy injection Zolgensma remains trapped in procrastination, while 29 children still await transfer to the UAE. Every day without treatment is another crime—the crime of an innocent child’s death.

A Cry of No Return

After 19 protests and false promises, the Muscular Atrophy Association announced it is giving the Government of National Unity only one week to resolve the case. Otherwise, peaceful escalation will follow, and Dbeibeh will bear full responsibility before God, before the people, and before history.