Hospital Experiences In Russia

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20030, 31 August 1939, Page 11

Hospital Experiences In Russia

THERE have .been many books on Russia, written by people who have made a special visit, or gone for a particular purpose. Mr. Peter Francis, however, a British working man, in his book “I Worked In a Soviet Factory," describes his experiences as a litter. He lived in. a Russian home, and not only writes of his work but of general conditions, and even gives his hospital experiences. He writes:- —

“I was cutting a wisdom tooth, which, curiously enough, the same name in Russian and German, and it was fouling its neighbour on the way through. 1 felt there must be some special significance that, it came through when I was in Soviet Russia.

“I called in to see the works dentist. whom I found to be a sympathetic little "Jewess from the Ukraine. She had two rooms and a good vet of equipment in the big old bowse in the Park of Rest and Culture. She dealt with the aching tooth quite effectively, advised me to live on soft foods for a day or two. and gave me a chit for three days' sick leave. I came in each day, and she carried on with the treatment till the tooth came right through cleanly. I had never managed to get..,sick leave for toothache in England." Later the author is taken ill, and relates the following significant incident:—

"Wo arrived at the hospital, called the Orekhovo Second State Hospital, and. having eventually found the right ward, we were brusquely told by the matron that there was no room in the hospital and that she had heard nothing about the telephone message. But the droshkydriver was having none of that. “ ‘Consider, Comrade Matron," he said; ‘here is a foreigner worker, I one of our brother proletarians from outside our borders. What will the workers in England say when he goes home and tells them that he was ill and there was no room in the hospital? What will they think of our magnificent social services? Comrade Matron, you cannot refuse him entrance. It would b e sabotaging the World Revolution.’ “That, of course, clinched the matter. She said she would raise an extra bed from somewhere. I entered the hospital." The author tells of Russia from the British working man's point of view, and it is this fact which lends special interest f.o his book on Russia, which gives the reactions of ' the man in the street to the Soviet regime.