Problems and contradictions of the development of the healthcare network of the Russian village during the "Khrushchev thaw": the second half of the 1950s — the first half of the 1960s (based on materials from the Saratov region)

The subject of the study is a network of rural healthcare institutions in the Saratov region during the Khrushchev thaw. The object of the study is the transformation of quantitative and qualitative indicators of the development of the material base of rural healthcare in the conditions of the development of Soviet agrarian policy in the second half of the 1950s – early 1960s. The authors consider in detail such aspects of the topic as the situation in the field of rural healthcare of the USSR and the Saratov region in the early 1950s and attempts to improve it during 1953–1964 years. The article analyzes the personnel, financial and other economic characteristics of the development of Soviet healthcare institutions in rural areas, the degree of accessibility of medical care. It was found that the primary influence on the change in a number of quantitative and qualitative indicators of rural health was exerted by attempts to implement the key setting of the Soviet social strategy to eliminate differences in the level of social and household development of the city and village. The main research methods were such special historical methods as structural-functional, problem-chronological and statistical. In addition, methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization and systematization of historical sources data on the research topic were used. The main contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is the introduction into scientific circulation of new little-studied archival data on the provincial history of domestic healthcare and, on this basis, making certain adjustments to the assessments available in scientific and educational literature on the progress and results of the development of health institutions in the Russian countryside in the second half of the XX century. The main conclusions of the study are the position that the persistent shortage of economic opportunities for the state (as a result of priority financing of heavy and defense industry enterprises), along with other reasons, did not allow, by the end of the studied period, to make universally accessible comprehensive medical care to the entire population of rural areas of both the Saratov region and the whole country.

hospital, incidence, medicines, medical care, country people, medical equipment, bed capacity, medical and obstetrical center, medical site, Russian village