SOVIET HOSPITALS.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 404, 10 April 1937, Page 2

SOVIET HOSPITALS.

Scarcity Reported. Moscow, April 4. The great increase in '.he birth-rate In Russia, following th 3 banning of operations for abortion under M. Stalin’s “New Family Life Sode,” has created a serious problezr. The official newspaper Pravda reveals that the pledge to build hundreds of maternity hospitals to cope with the increase las not been fulfilled. Terrible overcrowding has resulted. "The entire plan for building maternity hospitals in 1936,” the paper states, “has been postponed until 1937, despite the Kremlin’s orders. In Russia proper and Siberia, accommodation for 1100 extra beds should have seen provided, but only a score or two have reallj been installed. “In Gorki, for instance, where, as V result of M. Stalin’s decree, the number of births has risen by between IQO and 800 a month, a new maternity hospital with 60 beds should have seen opened last year, but will not b.e ready until next autumn. Now lhe Jorki Soviet proposes, as an easy way Jut. to turn children’s sanatoria and kindergartens into hospitals for mothers.” That, declares Pravda, is what has happened to the plan for 1936, and nobody has even thought about the plan ’or 1937. The All-Union Commissar Ipr Health, M. Kaminsky, and his Ukrainian counterpart, M. Kantororish, must, demands the paper, be called to account.