#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. They are Natalia Sveshnikova, deputy head physician for obstetric and gynecological care of the perinatal center, and Gennady Sveshnikov, deputy head physician for organizational and methodological work of polyclinic No.1.
Natalia Sveshnikova has given 48 years to Norilsk: here she graduated from school No. 3, and then from a local medical school, preferring medicine to music, which she studied from an early age.
“I come from a musical family. But dad approved of my difficult and unconventional choice. Then there was a medical institute in Vladivostok. After defending my diploma, I returned to my hometown for residency, and stayed here. It’s my destiny, my service”.
Natalia Sveshnikova and her husband have left for Novosibirsk, where they plan not only to babysit their granddaughters, but also to work a little more in their specialty. Their 36-year-old son Pavel has been working in this Siberian city for several years; he is a traumatologist.
In the perinatal center, which Sveshnikova has led in recent years, there are modern operating rooms, equipped intensive care units, departments for nursing premature babies, and in general, medical science has moved far ahead, Natalia says on the eve of departure. Babies weighing from 500 grams are now under doctors’ monitoring every second:
“I see a noticeable advantage of the perinatal center in the care for women, in the comfortable conditions for patients to stay in our center. The fact is that the second stage of nursing newborns is now located here, in the same building as the postpartum department. Previously, after seven days, babies were transported from the maternity hospital to the children’s hospital department: this was both risk and stress. Now mothers and babies are together, and we are watching all the processes”.
A doctor with 35 years of experience complains that the birth rate has been falling in recent years. But she is proud that medical support remains at the same high level – the city with the distinguished history of the northernmost maternity hospital continues to keep its reputation.
“All these years I have tried to live up to the level of the main person in my life, my beloved leader Tatyana Lastochkina. The maternity hospital is forever in the heart as a place of power. Often I just need to walk along Bogdan Hmelnitsky street along my native building: the memories and love that reigned there give me the energy to move forward”, admits Natalia Sveshnikova.
Former head physician of the Norilsk maternity hospital Tatyana Lastochkina, in turn, says that the Sveshnikovs have reached an extremely high level in their work and with their departure Norilsk will lose a piece of heartiness, a wonderful example of true service to people:
“This intelligent couple is distinguished not only by professionalism, but also by the human traits necessary for a doctor with a capital D: compassion, mercy, mutual assistance, love for everyone who asks for help”.
Sveshnikova passes the baton of leadership of the obstetric and gynecological care department at Norilsk interdistrict hospital No. 1 to Dudinka resident Evgenia Demova:
“Our center will be in good hands, I’m sure. Evgenia Demova is a hero, a selfless worker, a fighter. She has saved a large number of women in serious and critical condition with blood loss, moving them on Trekols and helicopters from distant Taimyr villages to the medical centers of Dudinka and Norilsk.
…In our service it is truly like at the front: maximum alert. Every second is sometimes someone’s life, a mother’s or a baby’s”.
Natalia is confident that the important direction for her personally and for northern gynecologists will continue to be the interaction of the Norilsk perinatal specialist with the research laboratory Reproductive Technologies of the Perinatology and Pediatrics Institute under the leadership of doctor of medical sciences, professor Vladislav Korsak. We previously reported that the perinatal center in Oganer, with a capacity of 110 beds, was opened in 2018. Here they provide specialized care to women of the Big Norilsk, patients from Dudinka, Hatanga and other Taimyr settlements.
Follow us on Telegram, VKontakte.
Text: Marina Horoshevskaya, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko, Vladimir Makushkin, Irina Yarinskaya and personal archive of Natalia Sveshnikova
