Siberia's medical train

The famous Trans-Siberian railway line runs from Moscow to Vladivostok, but there’s another line about 650 kilometres north of the Trans-Siberian. This is the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) and a special train, the Matvei Mudrov medical train, travels along its 4,000 kilometres. The train, with its twelve to fifteen doctors, spends a day in each of the small towns and villages along the BAM. The inhabitants of these remote places depend on this service because they mostly don’t have regular access to any other health care.

The Matvei Mudrov was named after a Russian doctor in the nineteenth century. He was one of the first doctors to believe that you shouldn’t only look at the disease, but you should also treat the individual patient. Nowadays, the Matvei Mudrov stops in each town or village on the BAM about twice a year. In the village of Khani (population 742) the patients include a man who has broken both ankles and a teenage girl who needs a check-up after surgery for appendicitis. Luckily, she was able to get to a town three hours away for the operation. Although the Matvei Mudrov can’t offer surgery, the train has a laboratory for blood and urine tests, heart monitors, an ultrasound and an x-ray machine. The medical staff includes specialists, such as neurologists, and they can diagnose and recommend treatment for their patients. The patients say they respect the doctors’ honesty and skill.

At another of the train’s stops, a town of about 4,000 people, there is already a queue of people waiting. 61-year-old Mikhail Zdanovich is one of them. He originally came to this town, Berkakit, in 1976. At the time it was a new town, with only about a hundred young people living in camp conditions. It was part of a Soviet Union expansion plan. Zdanovich married a woman who worked at the town bakery and they settled in the town. As soon as Zdanovich goes into the office, the doctor, Yelena Miroshnichenko, cries ‘Oh, Mikhail, I recognised your voice.’ He has a dislocated shoulder. The doctor writes a letter to say that he can’t work while he’s waiting for his shoulder to be treated. He leaves, happy, and then he returns a few minutes later. He brings freshly baked pies and a jar of goat’s milk. It’s clear that after years on the Matvei Mudrov, the doctors and their patients know each other well.

And, in fact, for these people living in this remote part of Russia, the Matvei Mudrov is more than just a health service. It’s a connection to the rest of their country, a confirmation that they are not forgotten.

Glossary:
appendicitis (n) an illness where a small part inside your body, under your stomach, becomes bigger than usual and painful
dislocated (adj) if a part of the body is not in its usual position, it is dislocated