CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 70, Issue 91, 18 July 1944, Page 6

CONDITIONS IN RUSSIA

ADVANCED MEDICAL SERVICE DR. EDITH SUMMERSKILL'S IMPRESSIONS A.s Dr. Edith Summcrskill is visiting New Zealand, the following might be of interest. I't is extracts from an address delivered by her in London in. -1935, and deal.s with medical services in Russia. "In Russia before, the revolution there -were not enough doctors to go round. The middle and upper class were well attended but the peasants had no medical treatment Avhatsocver. The provision was entirely inadequate. Now let mc give you an idea of general practice as it is conducted by the general practitioners in one area in Russia. If you can imagine all grouping their services instead* of competing, ' co-operating in one health centre—and that centre is called a prophylactorium—you have some conception of what it is like. The prophylactorium is the place where disease is prevented, and all the patients go there for a compulsory examination twice a year. Here arc the home doctors and all sorts of scientific apparatus for the treatment of disease . . . X-ray apparatus, thermal baths and so on. In Russia they have many clinics for venereal disease, and this scourge is gradually being stamped out. I went to an institution for mothers and children. In Russia all women have their babies in hospitals. Creches are; attached to these institutions, and the mothers can leave their babies in the creches while they stay in the hospitals. They are given two months'' holiday before and after their confinement, and if they go back to their factories they arc given time off tio go and feed their children in these creches. I want to tell you about the- night sanatoria, in many of our working class homes where perhaps men are suffering from some complaint which does not incapacitate them, they go home, living perhaps in one or two rooms, a'nd these men have no real rest if there arc sick children at home. In Russia such a man would go to a night sanatorium, have a good meal there., spend the night sleeping, and then go off to work the next morning, having had the opportunit3 r for the real rest he needed.

I went into the. hospitals in Russia in the big towns. You do not have them in. the villages of course any more than in England. I Avas amazed at what I saw. The operating theatres were perfect! 1 watched the work of the doctors. It also was perfect. The, English surgeon with us went into the wards and undid the bandages of some of ijie patients and was astonished to find that, the Russian surgical technique was-the latest of its 'kind. T remember blushing when a Russian surgeon asked us what we thought of a certain article in the British Medical Journal, and none of us had read it.

Another interesting thing in the operating theatres is their air conditioning. In England, except for the best hospitals, surgeons work under appalling conditions. It is very warm in the theatre, and after an afternoon's operations everyone is exhausted. In Russia the theatres are air conditioned.

They have al.so introduced a humane way of treating nurses. We always hear in London how we can-< not get. first class nurses. These girls who often work sixty hours a week arc-subjected to the strictest discipline on and off duty. Now in Russia it is quite different; the nurse goes home after her job, she is encouraged to marry, and flats arc put up near the hospital where the nurses live, and their husbands and children live there with them.

The .students in Moscow, in the First Moscow Hospital now consist of 75 per cent women students; this is because many of the men prefer to be engineers, and women are proving themselves exceedingly capable.

There are Institutes- of Food and Dietetics in Russia. The institute in Moscow had a ward for twenty people suffering from gastric diseases, and laboratories for research in disease of the alimentary canal.

I just want to finish or, this. What is the test of a medical service? There are three questions one should ask. Is it reducing sickness, is it supplying the needs of the people and is it an efficient service?

Here are a lew figures. The mortality in 1911 in Moscow was 2:i per 1000. i'n 1930 it was 13 per 1000.

They have stamped out cholera, and no cases were registered since 1927. With regard to small-pox by the way,, vaccination is compulsory —in 1912 it was, 5 per 10,000. in 1929 0.37 per 10,000.

Tiie .second test is: Are. Lliey getting a god service., arc they supplying the goods? They are getting a first class .service.

Is it an efficient service? I think the Soviet medical service will possibly be. in a very .short Lime, the best in the world. 1 am convince'.! of it. There is no overlapping: you

have the prophylaetorium where the people have compulsory examination. They are then .sent to the general hospital, or the .sanatorium or the rest homes. Then,' as to the status of the doctor, in, our group there was. a physician who rarely makes under £10,000 a year. He spent most of his time going up to doctors in the, different institutes and asking them how much they were making, and then he would come bade to me and say: "That man only makes £(> a week. What an appalling system." Doctors are being recruited from the workers very quickly, and they are happy because they are doing real service, they can already sec the results of their work . . . the infant mortality dropping, the general" health better, and a new and heaithv Russia in the making/'