Fatima Nurgazievna Nurgazieva - the first Kyrgyz woman Minister of Health of the republic

Fatima Nurgazievna Nurgazieva

One of the Kyrgyz activists of the 1920s and 1930s, the first Kyrgyz woman Minister of Health of the republic and rector of the Kyrgyz State Medical Institute.

Since 1929, she worked as a teacher, and from 1938, she was involved in the healthcare system. From 1949, F. Nurgazieva served as Minister of Social Welfare, and from 1950, she was the Minister of Health of the Kirghiz SSR. In 1955, Fatima Nurgazievna was appointed rector of KSMI. From 1962 to 1967, she worked as a doctor at the Research Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood. She is the author of eight scientific articles on the effects of mineral waters from the resorts of Ak-Su, Issyk-Ata, and Jalal-Abad, as well as the development of resorts in Kyrgyzstan.

F. Nurgazieva actively participated in the socio-political life of the republic. In 1950, she was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and in 1955, she was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the Kirghiz SSR.

For her fruitful and conscientious work, she was awarded the Order of Lenin, two Orders of the Badge of Honor, many medals, and the title of "Honored Doctor of the Kirghiz SSR".

In 1932, F. Nurgazieva married Yusup Bsenkulov. Her husband died in 1938. Fatima Nurgazievna raised a son and a daughter and was a loving grandmother.

In the village of Shaty, 30 km from the city of Karakol, a girl was born in 1911 to the family of shepherd Nurgazy Jumaev. She was named Fatima. In 1916, her father fled to China with relatives and other poor families. He worked for a wealthy man, Shakojo, at a tannery, receiving scraps of food and worn-out clothes in return for his labor. A year later, at the age of 21, Fatima's mother died. To avoid starving, her grandmother exchanged a golden bracelet inherited from her for two buckets of flour. Five years later, hearing that a new government had been established in their homeland, the refugees began to return to their homes. People died from hunger and cold, fell into ravines, and froze in the snow. Fatima's grandmother died on the way. But the survivors continued to move forward, cherishing the hope that the Bolshevik government would provide them with shelter, land, and bread.

Ten-year-old Fatima remembered the long pass, her barefoot father with wounded hands, and the last piece of stale flatbread that Nurgazy saved for his daughter. And then, from the pass between the Terkey and Kungoy Ala-Too ridges, a green basin and the vast blue lake Issyk-Kul opened up. The sun cast golden streaks on the water.

- Look, remember this day for the rest of your life - Nurgazy told his daughter. - A good sign - the sun is calling us. Maybe it will be better for the poor; the people's power will not let us down.

The family left for a foreign land as a large group, but only two crossed the glacier on the way back. Fatima lost her mother, grandmother, brothers, and sisters.

Nurgazy's hopes were justified. The people's power provided him with land, shelter, and bread. He settled in a new place, in the village of Taldy-Su in the Tyup district. Soon he was elected chairman of the village council and later chairman of the collective farm.

Fatima began to study. School and the Komsomol opened a wide path for her. In 1927, Fatima graduated from the Taldy-Su Primary School, joined the pioneers, and then the Komsomol. The women's department of the canton and the district committee sent Fatima to study in Frunze. In 1928, she enrolled in courses for training women organizers, and then in the Komsomol department of the Central Asian Communist University (CACU) in Tashkent. From 1929 to 1938, she worked as a women organizer and teacher in the city of Kyzyl-Kiya, and in the Alamudun and Bazar-Korgon districts. In 1932, she joined the party.

In 1938, she was appointed head of the health department in Atbash, and then in Przhevalsk. After graduating from health organization courses in Moscow in 1940, F. Nurgazieva was appointed the first deputy minister of health. In this position, she consistently implemented the party's policy. The network of hospitals, clinics, and resorts expanded in the republic.

With the onset of the war, the pressure at work increased many times over. The dwindling health army in the rear lost sleep at night to quickly return wounded soldiers to duty.

Phone calls often woke the deputy minister of health in the middle of the night. Distressed voices asked for help, demanding that necessary medicines be allocated from reserve funds for the sick. And Fatima's sensitive heart did not leave these requests unanswered.

- I need to study, - Nurgazieva once told a staff member of the personnel sector of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Kyrgyzstan. - To be a competent deputy minister of health, one must be a doctor.

And so, in 1942, Fatima sat on a bench alongside twenty-year-old students at the Kyrgyz State Medical Institute. A top student, an active public figure, a Stalin scholarship holder, she worked hard to deepen her knowledge. When she reached the 4th year, it became difficult. Lectures and seminars at the institute, work in the ministry, classes in laboratories and clinics. However, she did not abandon what she had started. She was helped by colleagues, students, and professors, both party members and non-party members. She was grateful to them all. In 1947, after graduating from the institute, F. Nurgazieva received her medical diploma and became a resident at the therapeutic clinic of Professor Volsky while simultaneously serving as the chief physician at the Issyk-Ata resort.

At the same time, she performed significant public work, serving as a deputy of the Frunze Regional Council and a member of the Republican Committee of the Trade Union of Medical Workers. In December 1949, she was appointed Minister of Social Welfare of the republic. Her main concern became the pension provision for labor and war veterans, families of fallen soldiers, elderly citizens, the organization of homes for the disabled, ensuring employment for those under her care, and caring for their health.

In March 1950, F. Nurgazieva was elected as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and in December of the same year, she was appointed Minister of Health of the Kirghiz SSR. From 1955 to 1963, she served as the rector of the Kyrgyz State Medical Institute. In accordance with the increasing demands of practical healthcare, the work of the university changed, and the annual intake of students increased. In 1956, a pediatric faculty was opened. The influx of Kyrgyz youth into the institute increased. In the 1960s, a fourth faculty, the dental faculty, was opened, and a main academic building, dormitories, a sanatorium-prophylactic, and a student cafeteria were introduced. From 1962, she worked as a doctor at the Institute for the Protection of Motherhood and Childhood, and later as the chief physician of a children's tuberculosis sanatorium.

In 1970, F. Nurgazieva was granted a personal pension of union significance. Her son, Marat Yusupovich, graduated from the Moscow Geological Exploration Institute and became a geologist. Her daughter, Maria Yusupovna, graduated from the Kyrgyz State Medical Institute and became a doctor.

Fatima Nurgazieva passed away in 1995 at the age of 84.

Author Kulbyubyu Bekturganova

Women of Kyrgyzstan