Medical-Biological and Socio-Psychological Problems of Safety in Emergency Situations

The medical service of the Red Army entered the Great Patriotic War with some experience of combat work in the recent Soviet-Finnish War with unfinished organizational restructuring and had o improve their organization, principles and forms of work, train medical personnel in the course of the "great war". It is appropriate to note that total losses of medical staff make up 210 thousand 601 persons, including 84 793 (40.3 %) irrecoverable losses and 125 thousand 808 (59.7 %) sanitary casualties. The most important part of a unified system of medical support for combat operations of the Red Army, which is closely related to the medical evacuation process is their hygiene and disease control. The main task was to urgently create full-fledged hospital database in each army with sufficient capacity and the ability to provide basic kinds of specialist medical care and organization of in-situ hospital treatment for all categories of the sick and wounded with recovery terms not more than 20–30 days. It was important for the actual implementation of the fundamental principle of medical support of the Red Army in the war – stage treatment with the evacuation as indicated. During the war, 598 mobile surgical field hospitals, 151 therapeutic field mobile hospitals, 154 infectious mobile field hospitals, 295 hospitals for lightly wounded (as of July 01, 1944) and evacuation hospitals for a total of 1 million 914.1 thousand beds were deployed and integrated into general medical evacuation system. General military inventory including bandages, surgical instruments, medicines, anti-epidemic, medical equipment, sanitary assets is provided. The Red Army received serious support from allies ("lend-lease"). The total number of sanitary losses in the Red Army during the war reached 18 million 320 thousand, irrecoverable losses – 11 million 273 thousand. Due to joint efforts of both military and civilian medical personnel, 71.7 % of injured and 86.7 % of diseased (10.5 and 6.6 million people, respectively, more than 17 million in total) were returned to duty.

Great Patriotic War, the Red Army, military, medical service, stage of evacuation, injury, sanitary losses, irrecoverable losses

1. Vol'skaya A.E. Voenno-meditsinskaya literatura v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [Military medical literature during the Great Patriotic War]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1986. N 3. Pp. 65–66. (In Russ.)

2. Gavrilov O.K. Sluzhba krovi v Velikuyu Otechestvennuyu voinu [The Blood Service in the Great Patriotic War]. Voennomeditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1985. N 5. Pp. 38–40. (In Russ.)

3. Grif sekretnosti snyat. Poteri Vooruzhennykh Sil SSSR v voinakh, boevykh deistviyakh i vooruzhennykh konfliktakh: statisticheskoe issledovanie [The losses of the Armed Forces of the USSR in wars, hostilities and armed conflict: a statistical study]. Ed. G.F. Krivosheev. Moskva. 1993. 416 p. (In Russ.)

4. Ivanov N.G., Georgievskii A.S., Lobastov O.S. Sovetskoe zdravookhranenie i voennaya meditsina v Velikuyu Otechestvennuyu voinu 1941–1945 gg. [The Soviet public health and military medicine in the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945]. Leningrad. 1985. 303 p. (In Russ.)

5. Komarov F.I., Lobastov O.S. Osnovnye itogi i uroki meditsinskogo obespecheniya Sovetskoi Armii v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny [Key results and lessons of medical support of the Soviet Army in the Great Patriotic War]. Voennomeditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1990. N 5. Pp. 3–20. (In Russ.)

6. Krutov V.S. Rol' Voenno-meditsinskogo muzeya v obobshchenii opyta meditsinskogo obespecheniya voisk v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine [Role of the Military Medical Museum in summarizing the experience of medical support the Great Patriotic War]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1955. N 5. (In Russ.)

7. Zil'berberg L.B., Lobastov O.S., Tsvetkov V.V., Chmutov V.P. Poteri meditsinskogo sostava v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine [Losses of medical staff in the Great Patriotic War]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1990. N 2. Pp. 20–21. (In Russ.)

8. Meditsinskoe obespechenie Sovetskoi Armii v operatsiyakh Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny 1941–1945 gg. [Medical support of the Soviet Army in the operations of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945] : in 2 Vol. Ed. E.A. Nechaev. Moskva. 1993. Vol. 2. 414 p. (In Russ.)

9. Makarov I.D. Bibliografiya po voennoi meditsine za gody za gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny (1941–1945) [Bibliography on military medicine during the Great Patriotic War (1941–1945)]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1946–1947. (In Russ.)

10. Smirnov E.I. Voina i voennaya meditsina. 1939–1945 [War and military medicine. 1939–1945]. 2nd ed. Moskva. 1979. 526 p. (In Russ.)

11. Smirnov E.I. Nekotorye uroki opyta meditsinskogo obespecheniya boevykh deistvii voisk (k 25-letiyu pobedy v Velikoi Otechestvennoi voine) [Some lessons learned medical support combat operations (the 25th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War)]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1970. N 5. Pp. 7–14. (In Russ.)

12. Tsentral'nykh arkhiv Ministerstva oborony Rossii [The central archives of the Defense Ministry]. Fund 67, inventory 12 020, case 5. (In Russ.)

13. Chizh I.M. Vklad meditsinskoi sluzhby v pobedu v Velikoi otechestvennoi voine [he contribution of medical services to the victory in the Great Patriotic War]. Voenno-meditsinskii zhurnal [Military medical journal]. 1995. N 5. Pp. 4–9. (In Russ.)