I was just reading on Wikipedia about the Islamic Golden Age and came across the section on hospitals. For some reason it never occurred to me to read about the history of hospitals in general although healthcare in a society is something very interesting to know about now that I think about it. Anyhow I was very surprised to see the following written:
Hospitals were forbidden by law to turn away patients who were unable to pay. Eventually, charitable foundations called waqfs were formed to support hospitals, as well as schools. Part of the state budget also went towards maintaining hospitals. While the services of the hospital were free for all citizens and patients were sometimes given a small stipend to support recovery upon discharge, individual physicians occasionally charged fees. In a notable endowment, a 13th-century governor of Egypt Al-Mansur Qalawun ordained a foundation for the Qalawun hospital that would contain a mosque and a chapel, separate wards for different diseases, a library for doctors and a pharmacy and the hospital is used today for ophthalmology. The Qalawun hospital was based in a former Fatimid palace which had accommodation for 8,000 people – "it served 4,000 patients daily." The waqf stated:
"...The hospital shall keep all patients, men and women, until they are completely recovered. All costs are to be borne by the hospital whether the people come from afar or near, whether they are residents or foreigners, strong or weak, low or high, rich or poor, employed or unemployed, blind or sighted, physically or mentally ill, learned or illiterate. There are no conditions of consideration and payment, none is objected to or even indirectly hinted at for non-payment."
This is as early as the 8th century, pretty darn cool!
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from Islam https://ift.tt/334LLia
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