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Kuwait
Health and Welfare
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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