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2,406 district health centers, and 2,291 medical stations, with a combined total of 19,325 medical and dental staff positions.

Medical care is offered at each of three administrative levels. Local health services produce public health care at the lowest level; each serves a population of 5,000 to 7,000. This service emphasizes preventive medicine through the administration of routine inoculations and the reporting of health statistics. District health services provide treatment for a population of 150,000-200,000, offering a range of facilities which vary with the particular health problems of the area and the population served. The highest level of health care is offered by the 11 regional institutes of health each of which serve approximately 1 million inhabitants. These institutes offer the country's most advanced medical technology, diagnostic procedures, therapy, and opportunities for specialized medical training.

c. Environmental sanitation

Despite plentiful precipitation in the mountain areas, parts of Bohemia in particular are relatively dry (annual participation in the Prague area is under 25 inches), and the water supply is occasionally inadequate for the needs of the people. As a rule, untreated water is not potable; most urban areas have filtration and chlorination treatment plants. Construction of piped water networks is a continuing project, and a larger proportion of the population is being served by such systems each year. By 1971, nearly 60% of the total population was receiving water from public mains, and nearly all of the cities and towns of over 10,000 inhabitants have a piped water system. Communities without piped water rely on private or communal wells, or rivers and streams. In 1969 the government reported that seven-tenths of the private wells, serving a significant portion of the population, failed to meet the required standards for purity. Also, many of the water distribution systems in existence are more than 40 years old, and because of their age and poor condition wastage and spoilage occur. Approximately one-fifth of the water distributed in Czechoslovakia is lose in this manner. Seepage of sewage and industrial wastes into water supplies is also a potential threat to health.

Sewage disposal methods in much of Czechoslovakia are inadequate. Approximately 47% of the population in 1971 was served by waterborne sewage systems, but these systems generally were concentrated in the urban areas. In order to meet increased loads, new sewage treatment plants are under construction and older facilities are being expanded. In 1967, a new sewage treatment plant was constructed in Prague and expansion of the system has been in progress in recent years. New construction, however, has failed to keep pace with the increase in sewage loads, and as a consequence there has been increased contamination of water supplies. An additional problem in many areas is that sanitary and storm drainage often flow through the same piped systems creating a potential hazard during periods of heavy rain and flooding. Outside urban areas, cesspools, septic tanks, and pit privies are used for the disposal of human wastes. Utilization of an open ditch type of sewage system in some rural locales leads to pollution of surface water supplies.

In the major cities, solid waste materials are regularly collected by municipal trucks and either burned in incinerators or buried. Trash in the rural areas is either buried or burned in the open.

Czechoslovakia faces a serious air and water pollution problem, and concern is reflected in the growing attention given the subject by government spokesmen and the communications media. Air pollution is most serious in West and North Bohemia, which have a heavy concentration of industry, in the coal and steel center of Ostrava, and in Prague. Damage caused by air pollution has been estimated at 3.5 billion korunas per annum. Most serious has been the loss of equipment through corrosion, forestry and crop damage, and losses in human health. According to government sources, the primary contributors of noxious smoke and gases are the power, smelting, and construction materials industries, home furnaces, and automobiles and buses. In an effort to combat industrial pollution, air purifying equipment is being installed in industrial plants to reduce the emissions of sulfur and iron oxides. Czech experts predict, however, that air pollution in the 1980's will be worse than in the 1970's. Water pollution is caused by the discharge of effluents into the country's surface water supplies by industrial plants, and inadequate sewage disposal facilities.

The problem of environmental pollution was discussed at the 14th Party Congress in 1971. A resolution adopted by the Congress specified that future economic development "should be conducted in a way which produces a balance between economic requirements and the living environment." To implement this decision, a council for environmental problems was established in each of the two republics with authority to monitor processes resulting in the changing of the environment and to direct activities which would protect and improve the environment. Working through the United Nations, Czechoslovakia

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APPROVED FOR RELEASE: 2009/06/16: CIA-RDP01-00707R000200110015-7