medical system failed to provide a high standard of quality in terms of medical care. The system was plagued by a shortage of facilities and equipment. The few facilities that existed were substandard, and even the finest of the Soviet hospitals lagged "behind their Western counterparts" (Rywkin, 1989, p. 105). In addition to this lack of quality, the Soviet medical system suffered from the fact that people had a hard time gaining access to it. Shipler has noted that, despite the vast number of state-owned hospitals in the country, "a Russian's access to good hospital treatment, knowledgeable specialists, and essential drugs is erratic and often unpredictable" (p. 216). In the traditional system, people are forced to wait for long periods of time before they can see a doctor that is capable of dealing with their specific ailments. Also, in the Soviet medical system, people are not given a choice over who their doctors will be. Rather, a patient is simply "assigned to the first available physician" (Rywkin, 1989, p. 106).
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