Feldsher-midwife Points

In Russia, there are about 130 000 rural settlements. Many hamlets, villages and towns are in hundreds of kilometers from cities, millions of people live there. Medical aid is implemented by FMPs – midwife points in the most distant points from the city hospitals.

Usually FMPs is the primary pre-hospital chain of health care in rural areas. Depending on the situation, the paramedic in the village must carry out the functions of a therapist, cardiologist, ophthalmologist, gynecologist and other specialists. At any time of the day she/he should be ready to provide medical assistance.

In the state of FMP there should be 3 employees – feldsher and 2 nurses. But this is not always so, often all three positions are performed by a single person – because of low wages (between 12 and 15 thousand rubles), young professionals don’t want to go to the countryside. Many medical facilities located in non-specialized buildings, such as former kindergartens, village clubs, the local administrations. Many of them have problems with water and central heating. For these reasons, currently, many FMP are closed – feldshers, who completed medical school, refuse to work in conditions of poor telephone communications, lack of Internet, water and heating.

Anna Shulyatyeva (1978) works and lives in Kotlas in Russia. She has studied photography at the Docdocdoc School of Modern Photography in St. Petersburg.