Insurance medicine in Belarus in the first third of the twentieth century

Abstract

Objective. To characterize the process of development of insurance medicine in Belarus in the first third of the twentieth century.

Materials and methods. Archival, periodical and narrative sources processed using general scientific and special historical research methods.

Results. Insurance medicine in Belarus originated in the early twentieth century in the form of hospital sick funds, which provided medical care to workers in case of illness, but was actually destroyed during the First World War. In Soviet Belarus the development of insurance medicine began during a period of massive reduction in healthcare funding associated with the New Economic Policy. In fact, insurance medicine became only a financial donor to the People’s Commissariat for Healthcare, but it was not distinguished as an independent branch, which was typical for the pre-revolutionary period, so the principle of unity of Soviet medicine was preserved. A characteristic feature of the studied period was the small social coverage of medical insurance, which applied only to workers and employees, who constituted a small part of the population of Soviet Belarus, where the rural population was greatly dominated.

Conclusion. Despite the successful experience of organizing insurance medicine, it was only a temporary measure to maintain the resources of unified Soviet state medicine and in reality covered an extremely small percentage of the population, so after the crisis in health care was overcome it was abolished.