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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Kuwait
Index
The health care system and health conditions also
improved
dramatically in the years after oil revenues brought
wealth to
the country. Kuwait's first attempts to introduce a modern
health
care system date back to the first years of the twentieth
century
when the ruler, Shaykh Mubarak Al Sabah the Great, invited
doctors from the Arabian Mission of the Dutch Reformed
Church in
the United States to establish a clinic. By 1911 the group
had
organized a hospital for men and in 1919 a small hospital
for
women. In 1934 the thirty-four-bed Olcott Memorial
Hospital
opened. Between 1909 and 1946, Kuwait experienced gradual,
albeit
limited, improvement in health conditions. General
mortality
stood between twenty and twenty-five per 1,000 population
and
infant mortality between 100 and 125 per 1,000 live
births. After
the government began receiving oil revenues, it expanded
the
health care system, beginning with the opening of the
Amiri
Hospital in 1949. The Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) also opened
some
small health facilities. By 1950 general mortality had
fallen to
between seventeen and twenty-three per 1,000 population
and
infant mortality to between eighty and 100 per 1,000 live
births.In the 1950s, the government introduced a
comprehensive
health care system offering free services to the entire
population. Free health care was so extensive that it even
included veterinary medicine. Expenditures on health
ranked third
in the national budget, after public works and education.
As with
education, the system relied heavily on foreigners. Most
of the
physicians were foreigners, particularly Egyptians.
Critics
charged the designers of the system with paying undue
attention
to acquiring the most modern and expensive medical
equipment,
without regard to the country's health priorities, and
favoring
treatment over prevention. Nonetheless, improvements in
available
health care and in public health were dramatic (see
table 5,
Appendix). The number of doctors grew from 362 in 1962 to
2,641
in 1988. The doctor-to-patient ratio improved from one to
1,200
to one to 600. Infant and child mortality rates dropped
dramatically; in 1990 the infant mortality rate was
fifteen per
1,000 live births. Life expectancy increased ten years in
the
postindependence years, putting Kuwait at a level
comparable to
most industrialized countries. In 1990 life expectancy for
males
was seventy-two years and for females seventy-six years.
In addition to a comprehensive system of health care,
the
government provides residents with one of the world's most
encompassing social service systems. Not only does it
indirectly
support the national population through guaranteed state
employment and subsidized services (such as water and
electricity), but it also supports those most in need
through
direct subsidies. These include the disabled, the elderly,
the
unemployed, students and their families, the widowed, the
unmarried, and even the families of prisoners.
By 1990 Kuwait had an extensive welfare program,
exceeded
perhaps by no other country. Citizens receive free medical
services from highly trained practitioners in modern
facilities;
free education through the university level; subsidized
food,
housing, utilities, and transportation; and various other
benefits. For all this, they pay no taxes: the system is
supported by oil revenues from outside the country. On the
eve of
the Iraqi invasion, the United Nations Development
Programme
placed Kuwait at the top of its annual human development
index
with a life expectancy of 73.4 years, an adult literacy
rate of
73 percent, and a real per capita gross domestic product
(GDP-- see Glossary)
of US$15,984. The benefits of the welfare
system,
however, are unevenly distributed among the population.
Noncitizens in particular benefit much less, and many,
especially
those from Arab states and those who have worked many
years in
Kuwait, resent their disadvantaged position.
Data as of January 1993
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