Solving the Problem of the Provision of Medical Personnel in the Cities of Western Siberia in the Context of the Reform of the Organization of the Healthcare System (1946-1960)

Abstract

In the pre-war period, an active industrial and, as a consequence, demographic growth began in Western Siberia, which continued during the Great Patriotic War. In the same years, there was a steady trend of the social sphere lagging behind the growth of industry, one of the aspects of which was the shortage of qualified personnel in healthcare, the study of the causes and ways of filling which in the post-war fifteenth anniversary is the subject of this article. Solving the problem of personnel shortage, the state used extensive and intensive tools, combining them with each other. If in the first post-war years the emphasis was placed on the quantitative increase in the physical number of medical personnel, then in the late 1940s – early 1950s, the state, within the framework of the undertaken administrative reform, made an attempt to fundamentally change approaches to the organization of work of physicians, changing the order of medical care to the population due to a more optimal use of existing resources. The results of the study led to the conclusion that the flexible innovative policy of the state to solve the personnel problem has significantly mitigated, although not completely eliminated, the shortage of personnel in urban medical institutions in Western Siberia. Unfortunately, the problem of personnel shortage in healthcare in its regional context during the specified time period did not find special coverage in the scientific literature, so the basis for the study was a layer of published and unpublished static data analyzed using general scientific and private scientific methods. Despite the fact that in the early 1970s it was decided to abandon the new model of urban healthcare, the historical experience accumulated during that period is of interest and has not lost its relevance in modern conditions of "optimization" of healthcare.