(3 of 3)
Birth control is another area where the Soviets are lagging. The government's ideal family has three children, but couples are forced to use the unreliable rhythm method or coitus interruptus, with abortion as a backup. According to Dr. Knaus, Soviet men do not like condoms, diaphragms come in only one size, and the pill (which is just beginning to be manufactured within the U.S.S.R.) is regarded with skepticism and fear. Intrauterine devices are popular but in short supply. The result: in 1980 Soviet doctors performed an estimated 16 million abortions. Says Dr. Knaus: "The average woman has six abortions during her lifetime. A woman in Odessa told me, without hesitation, that her mother had had 24."
While better equipment and treatments are available for the political elite, they also have problems. Dr. Warren Zapol, an anesthesiologist at Boston's Massachusetts General Hospital, tells of being asked to tend the daughter of Heart Surgeon Burakovsky. The patient, herself a doctor, had entered a general hospital in Moscow with abdominal pain, but then, as can happen in hospitals anywhere, "she got into trouble," says Zapol. She apparently had an infected fallopian tube and then a "misadventure" with anesthesia, followed by cardiac arrest and blood infection. When Zapol arrived in Moscow, she was having difficulty breathing and her chances of survival seemed slim.
In the end, she survived—with the aid of equipment and drugs from the U.S. and the care of dedicated doctors from both countries.