BEIRUT: Political intervention won’t protect health institutions from escaping the consequences of breaking the law, Social Affairs Minister Wael Abu Faour said Wednesday.

Abu Faour added that hospitals should look to the recent arrests in the case of a toddler’s death outside a north Lebanon hospital as an example that no one was exempt from the law.

“Owners and directors of hospitals in all regions should know they cannot treat similar cases lightly and that punishment will be inevitable if they commit similar violations,” he said.

He made the comments after a meeting with the parents of 22-month-old Moemin Mohammad, who died last month after a number of hospitals in Tripoli refused to admit him because his uninsured parents could not pay medical expenses upfront.

Abu Faour, who also met with officials from Tripoli’s Dar al-Shifaa Hospital, said it was up to the judiciary to decide whether only one hospital or more were to blame for the death.

The Health Ministry previously suspended its contract with the Dar al-Shifaa Hospital, saying its refusal to treat the child constituted a contractual violation punishable under the penal code.

Separately, Abu Faour met with a delegation of aid associations to provide assistance to Syrian refugees.