VTSPS HOSPITALS IN THE CAUCASIAN MINERAL WATERS IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE GREAT PATRIOTIC WAR

Abstract

The article is devoted to the insufficiently studied issue of the creation and operation of evacuation hospitals of the All-Union central council of Trade Unions (AccTU) in the caucasian Mineral Waters (cMW) in the first year of the Great Patriotic War (1941-1942). Despite the presence of works in this subject area by such scientists as N. D. Sudavtsov, S. I. Linets, the process of formation of evacuation hospitals of the AccTU and their work in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War is not covered in as much detail as historical sources allow. The article based on archival materials and eyewitness memories shows the process of creating military medical institutions in the AccTU system under the leadership of the department of evacuation hospitals of the AccTU in the North caucasus. The numbers of the AccTU hospitals, the names of the AccTU sanatoriums that became the material base for their deployment, and their locations in the cities of Kislovodsk, Essentuki, Zheleznovodsk and Pyatigorsk are indicated, the key officials who stood at the origins of their creation are named. It is noted that in this category of hospitals, as well as in the system of the People’s commissariat of Health of the USSR, prominent doctors and scientists of the country worked, among them Professors E.Y. Kramarenko and T. E. Gnilorybov, as well as well-known German doctors Maxim Zetkin and Richard Koch, who had Soviet citizenship. It was revealed that already in the first year of operation of hospitals, specialized departments for the treatment of certain categories of wounded began to be created in them. This not only contributed to improving the effectiveness of the treatment of the wounded in hospitals, but was also important for medical science. The recently published memoirs of the surgeon of one of the evacuation hospitals of the AccTU, R. F. Akulova-Rudneva, contributed to the understanding of this. The article proves that such a lack in the organization of the work of hospitals in the cMW, as departmental disunity, played a positive role in the evacuation, which the department of evacuation hospitals of the AccTU in the North caucasus conducted more organized than the hospitals of the People’s commissariat of Health of the USSR. This was facilitated by the high level of organizational activity of the management of the department of evacuation hospitals of the AccTU.

Keywords

• the great patriotic war
• hospital base
• caucasian mineral waters
• evacuation hospitals of the acctu