History of Medicine

History

An Open Access Journal

On the history of the formation and development of the Soviet maternal and child welfare system in the Buryat-Mongol ASSR: 1923‒1933

DOI: 10.17720/2409-5834.v7.1.2021.04d

Sergey D. Batoev1

1FSAEI HE I.M. Sechenov First MSMU MOH Russia (Sechenov University)

8 Trubetskaya St., building 2, Moscow 119991, Russia

This article examines key points in the formation of the Soviet maternal and child welfare system in the Buryat- Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1923‒1933, which preserved and advanced the pre-revolution basic principles of healthcare delivery. In the early 1920s, the high maternal and child mortality rate persisting in this region remained a pressing problem. Its resolution was one of the priority tasks facing both central and local Soviet authorities. To this end, measures were swiftly implemented to train medical personnel and set up a high-quality inpatient base, primarily in urban areas. By the end of the 1920s, following the creation of the first children’s unit at the regional hospital and the first women’s and children’s outpatient clinics in Verkhneudinsk, the primary focus had turned to maternal and child welfare in the rural areas. The shortage of medical personnel and medical institutions remained the biggest challenge. The key to the success of the first organisational and medical measures of the new public health system was the effective changes in the traditional way of life of the rural population of the republic, aimed at improving their lives, and the introduction of a standardised maternal and child welfare system while preserving regional peculiarities. The legal, organisational and medical process of creating a maternal and child welfare system in urban areas was completed in the first ten years of Soviet rule in the Buryat-Mongol Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. The next task was to expand and consolidate the maternal and child welfare system in rural areas.

Keywords: history of regional public health, medical care in the Buryat-Mongol ASSR, maternal and child welfare, women’s and children’s health centres, children’s preventive outpatient clinic

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