John Macqueen

John Macqueen (27 June 1895 - 21 June 1969) was a doctor and medical administrator working in Palestine during the British Mandate.

Staff of Haifa Hospital, circa 1939

Graduate nurses Haifa Hospital, circa 1939. Dr Macqueen in center

Born in the Black Isle, Scotland, he was educated in Inverness. On completion of his Medical Degree he served in the British Army during World War I before starting his career in Palestine.

During the late 1920s, as deputy head of the Palestinian Department of Health, Dr Macqueen was involved in the establishment the first infant welfare centres in Jerusalem's Old City and Bethlehem. It was part of a government program to reduce infant mortality which at that time was 201.27 per 1,000 births. By 1929 there were 27 such centers across the country, mostly funded by non-government bodies. Macqueen complained about the absence of financial support from municipalities, specifically Bethlehem and Bayt Jala.

At that time the Health department, with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, was active in combating malaria. Trachoma affected more than 60% of the population, with many sufferers being treated by the St Johns Eye Hospital, Jerusalem. Leprosy was disappearing, and there were vaccines for the other invectious diseases found in Palestine: rabies, cholera and smallpox.

Macqueen was appointed Senior Medical Officer in Haifa and Samaria District and in 1938 he became director of the new Government Haifa Hospital, designed by Erich Mendelsohn. It had 261 beds and included a nursing school. In the summer of 1941 during an outbreak of Bubonic plague he was in charge of the demolition of the several thousand huts and temporary homes in and around Haifa and introduced a program of rat extermination. This campaign was successful but in 1944 the disease re-appeared killing eleven people in Haifa and spreading up and down Palestine.

The Department of Health was severely under funded. In 1936 he attempted to introduce a health insurance scheme to pay for medical care in Arab villages. This project was halted with the outbreak of the 1936-1939 revolt. In 1938 and again in 1945 he put forward similar proposals for funding health care, modelled on the National Health Service. In a report he pointed out that in Jenin with a population of 50,000 there were four doctors whereas amongst a similar population in Great Britain you would expect to find 25.

Another area of concern was the lack of care for mental patients. There was only an asylum in Bethlehem and a section of Acre prison being maintained by the state; a total of around 160 beds. In 1942 there was a critical fall in conditions in privately run mental hospitals in Tel Aviv when the municipality stopped funding them. At the time the High Commissioner, Sir Harold MacMichael, commented that the treatment of the insane in Palestine "reflected badly on the Government".

The 1946 "Survey of Palestine", prepared for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, commented that Government expenditure on health care was low compared to other countries and that medical policy had not been carried out. Provision for control of tuberculosis was "still lacking", accommodation for those with mental diseases was "still inadequate". There was a shortage of trained midwives and the number of infant welfare centers had only risen to 38. Infant mortality amongst the Muslim population was 251 per 1,000 births. Venereal disease had become endemic.