Page 351 - UAE Truncal States
P. 351

Chapter Eight

                    After the Development Office had assumed responsibility for
                  health, more clinics were opened or rebuilt (Sharjah, Daid, JazTrah al
                  Za'ab, Umm al Qaiwain) and existing facilities were upgraded. The
                  hospital in Ra’s al Khaimah was enlarged to 60 beds. Soon after the
                  health adviser was appointed, a smallpox vaccination campaign  was
                  organised after an outbreak in the summer of 1967 in Dubai. A
                  longer-term task was the organisation of malaria control. “The
                  incidence of malaria, particularly in Ra’s al Khaimah, the East Coast
                  and the mountain areas, has been a cause for concern, and in May
                  1967 the W.H.O. Regional Malariologist, Dr H. j. Van der Kaay, paid a
                  visit to various areas of the Trucial Slates. He reported that malaria
                  definitely existed in certain areas and was responsible for about 50
                  per cent of the illness in the Fujairah and Kalba regions of the East
                  Coast. He considered that whereas a complete eradication program
                  would be difficult without a similar campaign being launched in
                  Muscat, certain control measures could be adopted and that a survey
                  team from W.H.O. should carry out a more intensive survey."120 This
                  team arrived in early 1969.
                    From April 1967 to the end of 1970 the Development Fund shared
                  with the Ruler of Dubai on a fifty-fifty basis the expenses of running
                  the Maktum Hospital.127 In 1970 responsibility for the clinic and the
                  maternity ward in Umm al Qaiwain was handed over to the
                  Government of Abu Dhabi.
                   During the late 1960s the Development Office increasingly used its
                  resources to co-ordinate and organise interstate projects. In August
                  1970 some cases of cholera were diagnosed in Dubai and Umm al
                  Qaiwain, and a campaign was organised by the Maktum Hospital in
                 which some 60,000 people were vaccinated.
                                                                                   :
                 Agriculture                                                       ■
                 Traditional agriculture in the Trucial Stales did not pay much
                 attention to gardens other than date groves. Some limes, mangoes,
                 tobacco and lucerne were grown, but vegetables did not form part of
                 the diet and were not grown. One of the reasons for establishing the
                 agricultural trial station at Diqdaqah in 1955 was to find out which
                 crops could best grow under the difficult climatic conditions in the
                 silty soil and using local ground water. Owners of date gardens  were
                 encouraged to use uncultivated land near their gardens or to develop
                 new areas  to grow suitable fruit, vegetables, and animal fodder for
                 marketing in the villages and towns. This meant that better

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