December, 2025
Hope in the Oasis
Strangers become family though service and love
Before the oil and prosperity in the United Arab Emirates, life in the Gulf was not a safe prospect, especially for pregnant women. The child-birth mortality rates were 50% for mothers and ~33% for the children. Approximately half of the mothers were dying, and 1/3 of the children in Abu Dhabi were dying during childbirth. This was due to the fact that there were no hospitals; Abu Dhabi was still an emirate of nomadic peoples without permanent homes or consistent healthcare. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, the architect of the modern UAE, recognized that his people needed care and reached out to physicians, giving aid in the surrounding Gulf countries, to recruit help for his suffering people.
Fortuitously Drs. Burwell "Pat" Kennedy and Marian Kennedy would answer His Highness' call. Pat and Marian were Christian missionaries who had previously provided medical care in Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan, but their work in Abu Dhabi would be even more challenging. Their original "hospital" was the guest quarters of Sheikh Zayed, a simple mud brick structure with limited space and no medical supplies. They made the most of it
The Kennedys, alongside a few dedicated doctors and nurses, would work tirelessly for years to enhance the medical care of the Emirati people. They had to craft makeshift spaces to run X-ray machines and would donate their own blood during procedures to save hemorrhaging mothers. Over time, their building space would increase, they would acquire better technology, and "Oasis Hospital" would rise from the sand to be a beacon of hope for Abu Dhabi. Even Mohammed Bin Zayed al Nahyan, the current Sheikh of Abu Dhabi and President of the UAE, would be one of the very first children born in the hospital. While the Kennedys would leave Abu Dhabi in 1975, their legacy and the hospital's reputation, renamed "Kanad Hospital" in honor of their service to the Emirate, remain to this day. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed recently stated in remarks to the Kennedy Family, “You [Kanad] came before the oil, when there was nothing to gain. Many of us would not be here today if you had not come. We will always be family”. Before the oil, a handful of dedicated and loving doctors ventured into the desert to help a community of strangers in need; their tireless work helped save a community, and their heroic efforts have impacted the United Arab Emirates for generations.