Page 57 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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situation, in Kuwait many of the poorer people, especially

non-Kuwaitis, continued to come to the Mission hospital in

preference to the large state hospitals. They felt that the

richer and more prominent Kuwaiti middle class was able to

demand preferential treatment at the state hospitals, but

that all were still treated equally by the Mission. The

''■ST Kuwaiti businessmen’s consortium which offered to subsidize

the hospital in 1966 made special reference to the special

service and care that the Mission was providing to this some­

what disenfranchized class of Kuwaiti society. In Muscat

the Mission’s patients were still for the most part extremely

poor and there was no question of fees paying for hospital

expenses.
i

In Muscat then, until the Omani government started

hospital subsidies, the Reformed Church had to pay for hos­

£ pital operations. In Kuwait, there were more middle class

patients able to pay for services received and these persons

were willing to subsidize the poorer patients who still

flocked to the hospital. In Bahrain, the higher standard

of living throughout the country meant that more money from

private sources was available for medical treatment. Called

back to Bahrain from retirement in 1954,the Harrisons were

interested to see the changed attitude towards medical care

by many of the Bahrainis: "People had more money to spend on

treatment, and they wanted the best. ’I don’t want a five

rupee injection,' said a common laborer, ’I can afford a ten

tt,105
rupee one, and I want it. That same year Dr. Harrison