Abstract

The aim of the study is to analyze medical aid given to the workers of ferrous metallurgy enterprises in the first half of the 1950s. Primary medical unit provided medical aid for workers of the ferrous metallurgical enterprises. Because of the lack of medical unit at the metallurgical plant or because there was no medical institutions in the organizational structure of the medical unit, local medical institutions provided the workers with medical care. During the first half of the 1950s, was the problem of the lack of medical staff in the medical institutions caused by insufficient material and household support. It did not allow implementing the shop principle of medical service of metallurgists. At the enterprises, individual shops did not have a factory’s sectorial doctor, or the number of workers assigned to a factory’s sectorial doctor exceeded the norm. Because the local hospitals, which controlled the health post at the ferrous metallurgy enterprises of the Zaporizhzhya region, were placed at a considerable distance, ‘the shop principle’ was not implemented there at all. The personnel problem also affected the formation of queues, which were a characteristic feature of the medical care provided to the workers. Work overload of physicians led to a quick examination of the patients, resulting in mistakes in the diagnosis. Contrary to accepted laws aimed at improving the quality of diagnosis, the periodic medical examinations of workers were not always carried out qualitatively, and the medical examination was carried out in a number of plants partly. In the first half of the 1950s the enterprises of the ferrous metallurgy of Zaporizhzhya region had a problem that the medical institutions were on a far distance and the percentage of patients needed medical help reduced. Lack of hospital beds had caused the untimely hospitalization of patients that prevented recovery of their. Many of the medical institutions were located in the old or non-specialized buildings with limited space, stove heating and primitive food units, without household premises and sewage. Characteristic of the medical services of metallurgists were depreciation of the material fund of medical institutions, lack of medicines, medical equipment. Not all medical institutions were provided with ambulances. There were cases of refusal to leave for a challenge or untimely provision of emergency care. It was concluded that the level of medical services given to the metallurgists in the first half of the 1950s was insufficient, despite the fact that they were workers of one of the leading branches of the Soviet economy.