Desert Girl sent me the most amazing thing today, a PDF of scanned pages from a National Geographic issue from 1952 which talks about Kuwait. The article is 20 pages long and contains 25 pictures of which 11 are in color. It’s incredible I love it. The caption under the picture above says:
A Mobile Medical Clinic, Bought with Oil Wealth, Tours Kuwait Villages
For ailing Arabs who cannot travel to the capital, the Sheikdom provides an American-built trailer unit staffed by a physician, nurse, and technician. Here the doctor examines an elderly man at an outlying village; other patients wait their turn. Treatment costs them nothing. New hospitals, including one for animals, are part of Kuwait’s heavy investment in its own well-being.
Here is the PDF for you to down. It’s around 4MB in size. [PDF Link]
Thanks Desert Girl!
25 replies on “Kuwait in National Geographic, December 1952”
Interesting post!
If you’re interested in pre-oil healthcare in Kuwait the following book is awesome:
Doctor Mary In Arabia
by Mary Bruins Allison
It’s about a doctor (Mary) who worked at the American Mission hospital (Gulf Road towards Shuwaikh close to the church – renovated recenly) from 1934. She especially worked with women.
Awesome ……
When Kuwait used to be a promising place.
Fantastic article. Thank you.
what was the neutral territory NATGEO was alluding to?
@ realist
what are you talking about, nationals still get free health care and foreigners have to pay like 3 kd or so .
Sadly, its still pretty much the same health care in government hospitals.
Great article.. thanks for posting!
@call me silly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi%E2%80%93Kuwaiti_neutral_zone
https://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Saudi-Kuwaiti_neutral_zone
@j
Free crappy healthcare ? No thank you, I’d rather pay. Taxes are being paid in the form of bureaucracy and crappy services, so the claim of a tax free economy is really not true. Beleive me everyone is paying dearly.
Key word here is Free, people
Free health care? You will pay with your life if you ever end up with a serious illness in one the government clinics.The Arab doctors,especially the Egyptians, are just pathetic.I don’t think think they are suitable to work work in private clinics or anywhere in the western world.
Source: experience
Great resource! I Intend using it at school to supplement the Kuwait Social Studies background information. Looking at such archive information makes one realise what changes are afoot at the moment. Are they all positive? Having just spent 30 minutes with my daughter on a driving lesson around the last bit of remaining desert around Mahboula – its the graffitti which is currently a concern – along with all the rubbish building and dumped construction waste. I remember the same place in the mid 80’s when there were farms leading right down to the coast road, and the only building visible were Fintas Towers and Barakah Complex. It is a messy concrete jungle now! Sad really.
Thats pretty interesting, thats probably what inspired this to come to life.
https://www.p0ach.com/2009/11/10/video-review-maidan-clinic-mobile-service/
You can sense in that article a vision, a love of the country and its people and a willingness by the movers and shakers to really transform the country and improve people’s lives.
Sadly that is missing now.
Sorry to blow you bubble folks, but there is nothing to be proud about. This article is from 1952, not 1852. We were a hundred years behind the times back then, and we are 50 years behind the times nowadays. We import the worst doctors because we pay them shit. We produce too few good doctors ourselves. We have horrible old hospitals, that are unfit for human usage. Even the private healthcare is crap, it just looks fancy. Its a real shame for a country as rich as Kuwait.
that’s amazing!! so sweet
The only way we can improve health care here is to:
1. Stop sending Ministry of Health ‘delegations’ to Third World countries to recruit low skilled workers.
2. Open up health zones in Kuwait and allow foreign hospitals and universities to set up their own and hire personnel and manage the operations themselves (i.e. Mayo Clinic in Dubai Health zone, Johns Hopkins etc).
3. Make the country a more open and attractive state for skilled foreign professionals to work and live in, and that also includes proper laws to protect them and their families.
Anything managed by any ministry, by any bureacratic-at-best-high-school educated Kuwait (and the ministries are full of them) is bound for doom, no matter how honest or hard working the minister is.
@َQ8sultana
https://www.kuwait-history.net/vb/up/uploads/21784429020080804.jpg
A great read…
Thank you Mark/Desert Girl for this post. The article was reviewed by Al Qabas daily recently and I never got round to finding the original. I will email it to my father who will love it.
Kuwait is at a cross-roads again… We tend to complain and moan, but I’m hopeful things will change and we will see a growth spurt similar to the ones we’ve seen before.
You people are being too harsh on gov hospitals. Did you know that gov hospitals in Kuwait have better equipment than private hospitals do? Also, did you know that some of the best doctors in Kuwait work for gov-fun hospitals?
sure it is a bit overcrowded and bureaucratic, but private hostpitals are pretty much cash mills aimed at giving you services and medicine you dont need. Its an American healthcare-style industry.
Hi @َQ8sultana
I am just wondering what are you Kuwaiti nationalist or Iraqi
why are you trying to prove that Kuwait borders are less then it seems????
I second JM, comment 21
Hilaliya – I’m with you. I just had a conversation with a Kuwaiti friend who asked why the United States isn’t doing more to help Kuwait – like building hospitals, etc. My personal opinion is that sadly, many foreign companies/organizations don’t want to come here – it is a bureaucradic minefield. Millions of dollars of an organization’s money is spent on proposals and feasibility studies alone – and then what happens? The process is so tainted that even when people WANT to help, the bid is usually awarded to a company favored by whoever the person is on the procurement end. Many now see business in Kuwait as a waste of time and resources. That is really sad – especially when there is not only a tremendous need for the projects, but also a budget for them.
Anyhooo, I loved the National Geographic story. I have another NG story from around the same timeframe (50’s) that I will try to find when I go back to the family home at Christmas. When/if I do find it, I’ll scan it and pass it to you, Mark.
thanks mark