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Siberia 20241003140355

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Yanelis González
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10 views1 page

Siberia 20241003140355

Uploaded by

Yanelis González
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Siberia's medical train

The famous Trans-Siberian railway line goes from Moscow to


Vladivostok, but there’s another railway line about 650 kilometres north
of the Trans-Siberian. This is the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM). A
special train, the Matvei Mudrov medical train, travels along its 4,000
kilometres. There are usually between twelve and fifteen doctors on
the train. The train stops for a day at places along the BAM. The
people who live in small towns and villages come to the train for
medical attention. There are no doctors or hospitals in their towns or
villages. For these patients, their health centre is on the train.
The Matvei Mudrov was named after a Russian doctor in the
nineteenth century. Nowadays, the Matvei Mudrov visits each town or
village on the BAM twice a year. In the village of Khani (population
742), the patients include a man with two broken ankles and a teenage
girl. She had appendicitis a month ago and she was lucky to travel to a
town three hours away for an operation. The Matvei Mudrov doesn’t
have any equipment to do operations. The doctors can diagnose their
patients’ medical problems and recommend treatment and medicines.
The train has a laboratory for blood and urine tests and a number of
medical testing machines. The patients like the doctors on the train.
They say they are honest and good at their jobs.
Next stop is a town called Berkakit. About 4,000 people live here.
There is a queue to see the doctors. Mikhail Zdanovich is waiting for
his turn. He’s 61 years old and he came to Berkakit in 1976. At the
time, only about a hundred young people lived in Berkakit. It was a new
town. Zdanovich met a woman who worked at the town bakery. They
married and stayed in the town. When Zdanovich walks into the
doctor’s office she says ‘Oh, Mikhail, I recognised your voice.’ He has a
problem in his shoulder. The doctor writes a letter to say that he can’t
work, he must have an operation. He leaves, happy, and then he
returns a few minutes later. He brings freshly cooked pies and some
goat’s milk.
For the people who live in this remote part of Russia, the Matvei
Mudrov is more than a medical train. It’s a social connection to the
community of their country.

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