IOR/R/15/2/1258

The file contains correspondence relating mostly to the purchase and shipment of supplies and equipment and the employment of staff for the Bahrain Government Hospital. The correspondence is mostly between the Adviser to the Government of Bahrain (Charles Dalrymple Belgrave), Political Agent, Bahrain, Political Resident in the Persian Gulf, State Medical Officer (Dr Ian Davenport Jones, later Dr Richard Henry Barter Snow), and the Indian Store Department of the Government of India. Additional correspondence is from the following:

• the High Commissioner for Iraq;
• the British Consulate-General in Beirut;
• the Government of India Medical Store Depot in Bombay;
• the India Office;
• the Accountant General, Central Revenues Department, Government of India;
• Gray, Mackenzie and Company;
• Theodore Hamblin Limited;
• Yousuf Mahmood Husain;
• Bombay Surgical Company.

The majority of the papers are connected to the sourcing, purchase, and shipment of medical supplies and equipment from India and the United Kingdom. These include invoices, covering letters for payments, lists of items needed, and requests for payments.

In addition, the papers cover the following matters:

• the proposal to appoint a female doctor to the Manama Municipality, later abandoned;
• complaints about the high fees of the Agency doctor and the cost of drugs;
• the employment of male dressers and female nurses in the male and female wards, respectively;
• free medical services for European officials of the government;
• recommendations by the State Medical Officer regarding the Lunatic Asylum (folio 230).

Included in the file is a memorandum on women's hospitals in India (folios 23-34), including a plan of Zenana Hospital (folio 29), plans for a 40-bed and 20-bed hospital (folios 30 and 31), a plan for a dispensary and emergency ward (folio 32), and a plan and designs for a house for the doctor (folio 33).

Folios 254-272 are internal office notes.