Based on these principles, the state developed a unified health system which provided free medical services for everyone. Enormous emphasis was placed upon epidemic control and prevention of infectious diseases from 1920 onward.

Small hygienic units were set up, later to become “sanitary-epidemiological stations”. Under the first Five-Year Plan of 1928, the Ministry of Health intensified efforts for the organization of health services in the form of polyclinics for industrial workers and farmers, and set out to establish medical school facilities so as to expand the health care workforce. In 1937 the social insurance funds were abolished. Hospitals, pharmacies and other health facilities were nationalized and brought under district health management.

29. Tulchinsky, T.H. and Varavikova, E.A. The New Public Health, Academic Press, 2000.