The Most Precious Asset

In all national contexts where they circulated, newsreels promoted the social policies of the states that produced them. In this issue of News in Pictures, the newsreel documented one of the health policies of the new regime – the sanitary caravan that would visit factories and production plants to offer free radiological exams in order to fight tuberculosis. This subject shows a series of radiological examinations performed on a group of unidentified workers.

Although they had existed before 1944, the health caravans increased their activity- especially in rural areas- after the change of regime, with many established during Florica Bagdasar’s term as Minister of Health (1946-1948): the first female minister in Romania’s history.

As early as November 1944, Romanian-Soviet sanitary caravans set off for Transylvania and Moldova, with the aim of combating epidemic typhus. In the following years, vast sanitary programmes would be set in motion in various regions and counties, in an attempt to solve the “sanitary problem” of a population that lacked the financial means and access to basic health education. Initially the caravans set off from the capital with the aim of making their way across the entire country, but in time their organization would be transferred to the regional level to examine children in nurseries, students in schools, workers in factories and plants, to combat socal  diseases (i.e. whose incidence is directly related to social and economic factors), especially in villages- and ensure the health of new mothers and their babies. Later, the core principles by which the caravans had been set up would be expanded to provide health services to workers on large industrial worksites and isolated parts of the country, in the form of X-rays, eye exams, or gynaecological checks.

The newsreel had the task of promoting these public health measures, while at the same time contributing to the wider project of health education by convincing the viewing public – particularly those in rural areas – to adhere to and trust the government’s health measures.

The newsreel topics on public health worked alongside a number of other categories of factual production that were coming out of Sahia in the early 50s, such as didactic (educational) films and popular science films, which both contributed to the wider goal of combating “obscurantism” and promoting trust in scientific knowledge. (MB, AB)