Book: “Misdiagnosed: Socialist Health Care Models in Retrospect”

Ever­y­where we look today, health care systems show unde­niable signs of strain and over­ex­ten­sion. Medi­cal profes­sio­nals report incre­asing pres­sure to work more rapidly and longer hours. Pati­ents struggle to find doctors with free appoint­ments and are forced to endure ever longer waiting times.

Against this back­ground, this new book sheds light on a funda­men­tally diffe­rent approach to health by inves­ti­ga­ting how socia­list medi­cal systems opera­ted in the Soviet Repu­blic of Geor­gia, the German Demo­cra­tic Repu­blic (DDR), and socia­list Yugo­sla­via.

In three chap­ters, we examine how these states set out to conti­nuously improve the health of their popu­la­ti­ons. Their guiding prin­ci­ples were preven­tion and social medi­cine, i.e., the approach that exami­nes the inter­ac­tions between our working and living envi­ron­ment and our health. Thanks to socia­li­zed property rela­ti­ons, these three states were able to address ever­y­day health risks in the work­place, in neigh­bor­hoods, and in schools, so that the health of the popu­la­tion could be actively protec­ted, rather than allo­wing indi­vi­du­als to fall ill and profiting from their treat­ment. As a result, these socie­ties were able to over­come post-war epide­mics and deve­lop into indus­tria­li­zed states with modern health care systems. The book exami­nes the various health faci­li­ties cons­truc­ted in these states, such as the poly­cli­nic in the DDR or the “self-mana­ged inte­rest groups” (samou­pravn­ein­te­resne zajed­nice) in Yugoslavia.

Tragi­cally, the human cost of capi­ta­list resto­ra­tion in the East after 1990 and the poor state of health care systems across Europe today have made the effi­cacy of the socia­list approach clear. A holi­stic and preven­tive orien­ta­tion was repla­ced by the frag­ment-ed and commer­cia­li­sed system of health care that we know too well in capi­ta­list states today. By revi­si­ting the histo­ri­cal expe­ri­en­ces in Eastern Europe, the contri­bu­ti­ons in this book show that effec­tive, univer­sal health care can indeed be built around peop­les’ needs, not profit.