Page 69 - Protestant Missionary Activity in the Arabian Gulf

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doctors and 960 nurses. Competition with such a compre­

hensive program on the part of a seventy-five bed mission

hospital was not considered to be realistic by the Board of

World Missions in New York, 127 When New York proposed closing

! the Kuwait mission hospital in 1966 a significant offer to

endow the hospital’s operation was made by a consortium of
!
Kuwaiti businessmen although the government declined to offer

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state subsidies. The New York Board asked the Kuwaiti

i Ministry of Health two specific questions: (1) Was the

Mission hospital an essential element of the state health

plan? and (2) Would the Kuwaiti government be willing to
|
subsidize the hospital if necessary to keep it operational.

The key question was :the first one. The Kuwaitis replied

negatively to both questions. Massive Kuwaiti philanthropy

over many years to the mission hospitals notwithstanding,

New York judged the Kuwaiti government’s official reserve
»
1 to be an expression of Kuwaiti indifference and decreed quick

closing of all medical work in Kuwait. Within four months

of the date on which the Arabian Mission Medical Study Team

presented its recommendation to close Kuwait medical work

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the hospitals closed their doors.

From the Kuwaiti point of view, the Board action in

New York was tantamount to a breach of faith which shocked

the Christian and Muslim communities in Kuwait and the other

missionaries in Bahrain and Muscat, The closure soon became

a subject of considerable controversy; In the first place,

the hospital was not actually in financial straits. There