Medical and Sanitary Living Conditions of Children in Orphanages of the Ukrainian SSR in 1945 – the First Half of the 1950s

Abstract

The Purpose of the article. Is to highlight the sanitary and hygienic conditions of life and the level of medical care of children in orphanages of the Ukrainian SSR in the first post-war decade. The methodological basis of the research is the principles of objectivity and historicism; complex and specific-historical approaches, as well as general scientific methods of research (analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, hermeneutic) and special-historical (historical-genetic, comparative-historical). The scientific novelty of the work is due to the extremely limited coverage in Ukrainian historiography of sanitary and hygienic conditions, as well as the level of medical care for children in orphanages. Conclusions. The post-war period became a difficult test for the physical endurance of children in orphanages and did not have the best effect on their health. Critical overcrowding of children in too close quarters contributed to the spread of diseases and even led to long-term epidemics. Due to the lack of necessary sanitary facilities, in particular, isolation rooms and quarantine facilities, as well as timely hospitalization, sick children were often together with healthy ones. It also posed a threat to the health of all children. The poor supply of personal hygiene products and medicines to orphanages, as well as the actual absence of doctors, who mostly worked in orphanages part-time and were irresponsible in their duties, did not contribute to the improvement of the situation. At the same time, the state tried to keep the situation under control, periodically arranging mass inspections of the sanitary condition of orphanages. as a result, some children's institutions were even closed. However, by doing so, unsanitary conditions in orphanages were only strengthened due to overcrowding by pupils. Because orphans from closed orphanages had to be distributed to already overcrowded other institutions of the republic.