Bhannes Medical Center

Origin of the name > BHANNES

Engraved in history for glory and humanity, Dahr-El-Sawan's village is known by "the evergreen land"!
This village was known by a syriac word "BHANNES" meaning "BET HANUSA". Some considered that the word Bhannes was given to an old church in the village, called ST. JOHN YUHANNA. While others believe and assure that Bhannes is 100% Syriac, regarding the fact that most towns and villages bear a name originated from the Syriac language. After being so repeated by people, it became HANNES. As to the letter B, it was used to indicate the place of residency of a person. For example: "Where are you from?" "I am from B-Hannes".

Dahr-El-Sawan is a historical village, 20 Km away from Beirut, standing at an altitude of 1000m. Since 1783, it has been classified as belonging to the Metn region.

Historical Background

At the beginning of the century, the sanitary state of people who constituted the Ottoman Empire was alarming. The cholera epidemics raged a lot while numerous lepers and those suffering from tuberculosis were rejected in vast lands, waiting for destiny to decide their fate. In this period, the Lofty Door ( Ottoman Empire) was hiding an enormous misery.

1908- At that time, Bhannes Mountain, situated at about 20 Km at the northern east of Beirut and at 1000 m of altitude, served as a "public discharge" for people suffering from tuberculosis. The Providence took care of the rest. It constantly guarded the place where it manifested, as always by love, otherwise said by charity.

Cécile de Veyviale, one of the Sisters of charity, passed through this mountain and was taken by the commiseration for her fellow brothers suffering from this terrible disease. The next day, the nun created a community, the day after a HOTEL-Dieu consisting of 40 beds, and in 1912, she initiated the construction of a pavilion of 150 beds, which today holds her name. Before its collapse in the region in 1918, the Ottoman Empire robbed it and destroyed it.

During the war, the nun died, but the Charity flourished. Many of her colleagues sympathized with the sufferings of these poor and made of this place the biggest sanatorium in the Middle East : Five large pavilions with more than one thousand beds capacity. Patients rushed over from Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Gulf countries. Along with the antibiotic discoveries, the Charity abolished this pest. It was during this period 1960-1970 when the first signs of a regional destabilization stood at the horizon, of which Lebanon, for the most part, will pay the cost by blood and wrecks.

1975-1990, for sixteen years, the powers of evil roamed over this little country destroying human lives and homes. Death and exodus were the trophies of war. However, the Providence was present again. In 1976, Bhannes religious community decided to turn the Sanatorium's immense complex to a General Hospital Center, very aware in keeping its pneumonic specifity. Thousands of wounded people were taken care of. Many human lives were saved.

In 1982, in the middle of this tragic period, the physically handicapped infancy, the one which slopes because of poliomyelitis paralysis or other origins, which detained away from sun, away from sight because of a large number of vertebral or member deformities, this infancy found its hope in a priest, St Vincent disciple, who entrusted to the Sisters of Charity the duty to straighten those who cannot stand upright.

That human deficiency spurt out at Bhannes the Infantile Orthopedic and Scoliosis Center, where hundreds of paralyzed children, and those suffering from scoliosis or cyphosis, condemned to the physical and moral asphyxia, gained back their lost human being's dignity.

1987 - Will Bhannes's vocation be limited to that?
Never, because this will be limiting the infinite charity.

Have you heard of the cerebral palsy? Of these children who are born with multiple motor troubles, whether at the locomotion, elocution absorption, vocal expression levels or others? These children are becoming more and more numerous as the 20th century is at its near end. With the progress of the newborn reanimation, they survive and are left as a "deposit" as said by a great friend of Bhannes. Yes, for us it is a new mission confided by the providence. This child, provided with a sane spirit in a body that does not or wrongly responds to commands, this child different from the "beautiful world", but whose intelligence shows in his looks towards the limits of man and his spiritual destination, this child found at Bhannes an ideal center to develop all his possibilities, be independent and interact in society.

In 1990, the Saint Louise building became a therapeutic center for children suffering from Cerebral Palsy. It was named the Center of Robert de Lobkowicz because of the financial aid of Malta's Sovereign Order and that of Belgium's government.

In April 1993, the first stone of the Saint Florian Pulmonary Disease Center was laid. However, the Center remains devoted to its first vocation, to the care of those suffering from tuberculosis and those having respiratory deficiencies. It is due to the compassion of our Austrian friends, Salzburg caritas, that the project has been accomplished. Nevertheless, it is until the end of 1997 that we were able to move into the new building that holds up to 70 beds.

In June 11, 1993, the Orthesis Center, which is common to both the Saint Louise and the Saint Vincent buildings, was inaugurated. This Center produces the corsets, the splints and the walking instruments for the sclerotic children and all handicapped ones. The center functions since august 1992.

1995-1996 The present and the future at Bhannes Medical Center:
Patients are taken great care of, the physically handicapped are well treated, the child suffering from Cerebral Palsy is educated in a therapeutic frame, and the Orthesis Workshop, open since 1993, produces instruments and corsets for the patients. However, a necessary element is missing to complete the medical circuit: the Reeducation & Rehabilitation Center.
This Medical Reeducation and Functional Rehabilitation Center includes 80 beds and a technical platform of 1.900m2. Hydrotherapy, among all the actual possibilities of reeducation will be at the service of the patient. This last technique, old as the world, is mandatory to give strength to the patient who's members or vertebra were operated, as well as for a patient who had never walked for him to stand up again. All the children suffering from Cerebral Palsy and the scoliotic operated benefit from the reeducation pool of static water. As for the pool of dynamic water, it is imperative to people partially or totally deprived from their palsy, and who need physical progressive functional rehabilitation (to build their muscles) as well as a psychological one (to reestablish their confidence in the wished autonomy).

6200m2 divided among four floors with a specific annex of 400m2 to the hydrotherapy department, which is composed of a pool of 10 x 10m of static water, and another of 8 x 3m of dynamic water subdued, and at a variable height, with patient lifts, walking corridors, and an accessory arsenal indispensable to this therapy.