On some trends and problems of development of regional healthcare in the USSR on the eve of and during Perestroika (based on the materials of the Kaliningrad region)

Collective the impact of the “perestroika” processes of the second half of the 1980s on various aspects of the life of Soviet society and the state attracts constant attention of researchers. However, a full-fledged study of their impact on domestic healthcare is just beginning. Promising in this context is the use of a regional approach, which allows both to trace national processes and to determine local specifics. The purpose of the article is to identify trends and problems in the development of healthcare in the Kaliningrad region on the eve of and during the “perestroika” period. The documentary basis of the article is certificates, acts, minutes and other materials of the regional department of healthcare and the regional executive committee from the funds of the State Archives of the Kaliningrad Region. In the first half of the 1980s, despite some positive changes, a set of problems of an infrastructural, personnel and technological nature formed in the region, which became the object of criticism in the context of the implementation of the course on the development of “glasnost”. During the years of “perestroika”, Kaliningrad healthcare was actively involved in the all-Union processes of modernization of the medical care system. However, the launched processes, due to which it was possible to achieve individual positive shifts, in the context of the growing economic crisis in the country, did not lead to overcoming the systemic problems of regional healthcare.