The Bismarck tribune., 1931-11-12
It Pays For Expectant Mothers
to Be Employed in Land
of Communists
Editors note: This is the
eighth of a series Of stories
dealing with Soviet Russia.
BY. JULIA BLANSHARD
IYr~.la e. n L A Sons,io<


copyright, 1881, NEA Service, lnc.)
If you were an eXpectant mother
in Russia, it would pay you to be a
factory worker. You would be en-
titled to four months off with pay
when the baby was born.
If you were a lawyer, teacher or
clerical worker, you would get three
months vacation from work-either
two months before baby was born
and one afterwards-or one month
before and two afterwards.
You would have no worry over
doctors or nurses bills. You would
be entitled to 10 days free in the
hospital. In overcrowded Moscow,
you might get only three days, to
make room for somebody else, but
you would be sure Of free care.
The Soviet government has social
lied the whole medical profession.
All doctors are on the state payroll,
all workers doctor bills are paid by
the state.
One day I visited a Moscow gen.
eral dispensary located in an out
lying district, where there are two
huge textile factories and one metal
lurgical and one chemical factory.
This dispensary is responsible for
the health of the $4,000 persons in
this district. 1t handles 1000 cases
day. Everything from a pair of
glasses to a major operation is free.
All the doctors, nurses, dietitians
and other workers are government
employees.
Five lines of men, women and
children waited in the hall, before
the windows that registered patients.
A huge wall newspaper, gaudily got
ten up with colored crayon sketches
and printing cautioned patients to
"talk only to the doctor about your
sickness" The wall newspaper also
quite unconsciously gave a cue to
the handicaps that this particular
hospital labors under by listing the
dreams" Of staff members of Po-
land.
I arrived just in time to join a
tour of inspection that the hospital
director was taking with six young
doctors, five girls and one boy, who
had just graduated from the Moscow
Medical College. They were the
first group to complete their five
year medical course in four.
The dispensary was an enormous
place with consultation rooms for
everything from a Red army medical
examination to clinic on fatal skin
and eye troubles which workers suf-
fered in the chemical factory. There
was special wing for children and
a huge department for women.
Gall women in Russia should
know methods of birth-control by
the end of the Five Year Plan," the
director told me. "All hospitals, the
Tags Marriage Bureau, the Red Ar
my and all factories give specific in
formation" I saw birth control PAM
phlets in many Moscow drug stores.
Abortions are legal in Russia.
Russia's medical care of it's chill
dren is one Of its most successful
health programs. In the first years,
after the revolution, the death rate
was AZ children to every one thou
sand. Now it is 19 to every one thou
sand. The American figure is ii
to 1000.
-
No soldier in the Red Army can
get through his compulsory service
without having been taken through
this museum or some exhibits from
it. Schools and universities send
their pupils to be instructed in the
care of their younger sisters and
brothers. Every factory has special
programs instructing both fathers
and mothers. And the government
makes all mothers register their ba-
bies at the local institute and take
them back for examination at stated
intervals.
If you happened to be an old
bourgeois in Russia and sick, you
might not be able to get doctor at
all. However, practically everybody
who has gotten job under the new
regime belongs to some cooperative
or some union that has it's own medi-
cal center. Foreigners now are
looked after by the Russian Red
Cross.
! With housing conditions SO bad in
Russia today, the whole theory is to
take sick folks to hospitals for
treatment.