SURGERIES IN THE EVACUATION HOSPITAL No. 995 DURING WORLD WAR II

The specifics of surgical work in one of the major Saratov evacuation hospitals later transformed into Saratov Scientific Research Institute of Traumatology and Orthopedics (NIITONSSMU) remains underresearched. In fact, the work done in the Evacuation Hospital No. 995 is also disclosed fragmentarily. During World War II years about 10.000 Red Army soldiers were admitted to the traumatology and orthopedics Evacuation Hospital No. 995. 162 people worked in the hospital back then, 16 of them were doctors and 64 were nurses. A few days into the war Hospital No. 995 commenced work with the staff and equipment of an ordinary surgical hospital. There were 400 beds in the hospital and initially it received those with severe wounds of lower extremities, but over time switched to the treatment of gunshot hip fractures, injuries of hip and knee joints. In the last years of the war, the hospital mainly treated these types of patients – as much as 90 per cent of them had traumas and orthopedic problems (Fig. 1). 1942 and 1943 were the hardest because of the Battle of Stalingrad. At this time the hospital received a large number of soldiers with traumas and orthopedic injuries as well as those with all other types of wounds; they were particularly numerous in the autumn of 1942. The data on the hospital work during 1941-1945 is presented in Fig. 2, 3, 4. They show the great work of the hospital team done during the war years. Figure 4 shows the gradual growth in the number of surgeries as well as their specifics: there were a great number of vascular surgeries and amputations in the first years of the war, and soon after the WWII was over the number of sequestrotomies and surgeries for ununited fractures increased suggesting the change of the type of medical care provided in the hospital. Even at the hardest time, during the Battle of Stalingrad, the hospital staff managed to provide good medical care and saved the lives of many wounded soldiers. Great professional skills of surgeons and nurses of the hospital made the most complicated surgeries possible. They employed an integrated approach to treatment and took into account all factors affecting the outcomes thus enhancing the efficiency of treatment and recovery that enabled soldiers to return to the army.