LOOKING TO A BETTER FUTURE
11. RESTORING HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION IN CHECHNYA
SOURCE. Khasan Musalatov, "Sotsial'nye problemy Chechenskoi Respubliki" [Social Problems of the Chechen Republic] in Chechnia: ot konflikta k stabil'nosti (problemy rekonstruktsii) [Chechnya: From Conflict to Stability (Problems of Reconstruction]. Moscow: Institut etnologii i antropologii RAN. pp. 234-241.
The author, apparently an official in Chechnya's ministry of health, describes the fate of the republic's healthcare and education systems over the past decade and discusses the problems of restoring them.
At the beginning of the 1990s, Chechnya had about 400 medical facilities of various kinds, with 11,000 beds. In 1996, following the first war and some modest reconstruction, 197 of these facilities were functioning. Under the inter-war separatist regime of 1996-99, most of the remaining capacity was lost. Medicines, equipment, and ambulances were stolen by "fighters"; physicians abandoned Chechnya; and medical premises were put to other uses (e.g. to house offices of the Ministry of Shariat Security).
When federal forces returned to Chechnya, military physicians provided medical aid to the population. "That pregnant Chechen women were taken in armored vehicles to army tents with a red cross on the roof, and after giving birth gave their babies Russian names in honor of the army doctors -- these are also events from our shared history which we must not forget."
District hospitals and some other facilities have now been reopened, and a start has been made on immunizations. Besides shortages of material resources, the main problem is persuading qualified medical personnel to stay in, or return to, Chechnya.
The author expresses concern at the health hazards posed by the mini-refineries, and also by the radioactive waste burial site at the Rodon plant.
Chechnya began the 1990s with 450 schools and 3 higher education institutions. Most of these were destroyed by war or closed by the separatists. Most of the books, equipment, and furniture was stolen. Dudayev said that boys need only 4 years of schooling and girls need none at all. There are children aged 10-15 years in Chechnya who have never gone to school.
60 per cent of the schools are now functioning again. So are the 3 higher educational institutions, although most of their former faculty have left Chechnya and are reluctant to return under current conditions.
However, the successes of restoration were achieved mainly under the supervision of the representative office of the federal government. Since responsibility for the civil administration was turned over to Kadyrov, the work has ground to a halt.
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*** THIS IS CHECHNYA ***
A humanitarian shipment of second-hand clothes arrived in the village of Aldy from Germany. For several days in December a line stood from morning to night outside the gates of the Yakhyayevs' house. Inside, in the yard, women were doing a brisk trade. For sale were items intended for free distribution among the most needy and impoverished people. Those who dared express doubts about the propriety of selling humanitarian aid were immediately taken out the gates.
[Press release #169, 1/15/02]
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