Turner Children’s Orthopaedic Research Institute
The history of the institute began in 1890, when the Blue Cross charity established an orphanage for disabled children. Genrikh Turner headed the orphanage for many years. In 1932 the orphanage was reformed into the Turner Institute for the Recovery of Disabled Children. It had 200 beds and was located in one of the buildings in St Petersburg. After the war the institute started to expand its surgical wing. It organised and implemented a system of early detection, treatment and regular medical check-ups of children with inborn and acquired diseases of the locomotive system. In 1967 the institute was relocated to Pushkin.
The Turner Children's Orthopaedic Research Institute is one of the oldest specialised research and medical institutions for children with diseases and injuries of the locomotive system, and is unique in Russia.
Currently the clinic of the institute has 440 beds, 10 departments, including eight surgical orthopaedic departments.
The institute treats children from all constituent entities of the Russian Federation. It performs over 3,000 operations per year.
The establishment and development of neonatal orthopaedics has special importance and potential for the institute. Currently diagnosis of orthopaedic pathologies in newborn children and surgical correction are being performed at the institute. It is planned to develop a system of prenatal diagnosis of orthopaedic pathologies in children with further development of efficient methods of early conservative and surgical treatment.
The most important areas of the institute's work is provision of orthopaedic and traumatological aid to children and medical rehabilitation of disabled children, improvement of diagnostic methods and treatment of pathologies in children's joints, spinal column, inborn and acquired pathologies in the hand and foot, and microsurgery in the treatment of deformation of the locomotive system.
Currently the institute has a staff of scientists and doctors, including eight Doctors and 41 Candidates of Science, and eight honoured doctors of the Russian Federation.
The institute conducts scientific research in different areas of orthopaedic and traumatological aid to children, including traumas and diseases of the spinal column, comprehensive treatment of inborn malformations, and dysontogenetic and degenerative dystrophic diseases of the lower extremity joints of children.
In the period of 2005-2009 specialists at the Turner Institute developed and registered 22 diagnostic technologies and treatments of pathologies in the locomotive system of children.
The institute conducts educational activities, including participation in postgraduate and additional professional education programmes in traumatology and orthopaedics, and trains specialists for the federal centres of hi-tech medical aid in traumatology and orthopaedics.
In 2009 the construction of the institute's new treatment facility was completed, for which 1,382.4 million roubles was allocated out of the federal budget.
With the opening of the new building the number of beds in the institute will increase to 580 and a new department for medical rehabilitation of children who have undergone orthopaedic surgery will be created. Special attention is currently being paid to medical rehabilitation, and further development of this area is planned by the institute. In this connection, one of the federal health clinics in St Petersburg will be transferred to the institute.
