PUBLIC HEALTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP82-00457R015800180005-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: November 8, 2006
• Sequence Number: 5
• Publication Date: February 13, 1953
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2006/11/09: CIA-RDP82-00457R015800180005-7
FORM NO
. 51-4AA
FEB 1952
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
SECRET
SECURITY INFORMATION
INFORMATION REPORT REPORT
CD NO.
COUNTRY Czechoslovakia
SUBJECT Public Health
DATE OF
INFO.
PLACE
ACQUIRED
THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS INFORMATION AFFECTING THE NATIONAL DEFENSE
OF THE UNITED STATES, WITHIN THE MEANING OF TITLE 18, SECTIONS 793
AND 794, OF THE U.S. CODE, AS AMENDED. ITS TRANSMISSION OR REVE-
LATION OF ITS CONTENTS TO OR RECEIPT BY AN UNAUTHORIZED PI:R50N IS
PROHIBITED BY LAW. THE. REPRODUCTION OF THIS FORM IS PROHIBITED.
DATE DISTR. 13 February 1953
NO. OF PAGES 2
NO. OF ENCLS.
(LISTED BELOW)
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
There is no special, school for -Public Health training in-Czechoslovakia A
It lasted four months and was for the training of physicians
The course was allegedly given. in the State Public Health Institute (Sta.tni
zdravotnicky u.stav - SZU) in Prague. A similar ten-month course for district
physicians was being planned with the backing of Dr. Baxdos of the SZU. Other
courses dealing with. public health Included,
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as A ten-month course is conducted in, the Bratislava branch of the SZU in
which clinical laboratory personnel of professional caliber are given
advanced training in public health laboratory procedures, e.g. bacteriological,
histological and biochemical methods.
b. Midwives e required to complete a ten-month course of training in theory
and practice. Such'courses are available at most larger hospitals.
c The Zratislava Roentgen Clinic conducts a one-year course for the training
of X-Ray technicians who are then used only for routine X-Ray work.
d. Nursing candidates at present receive a six-month course of training in
larger hospitals. tal was conducting its third such course
with 33 student se ndidates, when graduated, increase
the number of available nursing aids despite their hasty preparation.
e, A Social Service School was opened in September 1951 at Tr?nava. It offers a
two-year course of training for-Social Service workers. There are 25 girl
studetts. The faculty includes members of the `i`r?nava hospital staff. Studies
include anatomy, physiology, pathological physiology, social studies and
Marx-Leninism. Graduates of-this school may also become mid-wives,
SECRET
STATE
NSRB
NSRB
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ARMY
FBI
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Approved For Release 2006/11/09: CIA-RDP82-00457R015800180005-7
 Approved For Release 2006/11/09: CIA-RDP82-00457R015800180005-7 25X1
SECRET/SECURITY. INFORMATION
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2. Nurses were recruited from religious orders, prior to the Communist
coup. The religious orders conducted a two-year Nurses Training
Program in their own school in Bratislava. This school utilized
the medical faculty of the university as teachers. After the two-
year course the nursing candidates were assigned to hospital6,for
completion of training and performance of nursing duties. The
religious orders lost their school and the six-month course at
the individual hospitals substitutes for the two-year course. Nuns
can no longer become nurses although those already trained as nurses
could, as of April 1952, maintain their jobs. One result of this
change from :Duns to civilians has been a loss of hospital discipline.
Another effect has been that nurses are more rapidly available, but
less efficient. Finally, young women can no longer become nuns and
the number of religious nurses is gradually decreasing.
Propaganda methods used by the Slovak. Health Ministry for th.p:b11c
health indoctrination of civilians are similar to those of the USSR.
Posters .in public buildings, hospitals, factories, etc are duplicates
of Soviet publications and include themes such as "Soviet Public
Health", "-Blood Donation", "Infectious Disease". Beginning in April
1952, young doctors were.required to give lectures on medical subjects.
The first subject chosen was "Anti-Alcoholism". (Alcoholism is now
widespread, and has become a great problem under the Communist
regime.) Lectures are held in city auditoriums. The Red Cross is
still theoretically an independent organization, and, as such,
gives intensive courses in cities and towns in first aid. These
courses last for one to two months and are conducted with the.
assistance of hospital physicians as lecturers. The Bratislava
Health Ministry publishes a monthly journal called "Zdravy Narod",
("A Healthy Public".) which contains public health propaganda, and
Communist propaganda.
Disease control is the responsibility of the Public Health Office,
which has an epidemiologist on its staff (usually the Chief of the
Infectious Disease Section of the District Hospital). The epidemiolo-
gist exercises his control in the smaller villages through the local
public health physician who is stationed in every small sub.-
division of the district. The epidemiologist is controlled adminis-
tratively by the Minister-in-charge of Public Health, through
Regional Public Health Offices and the.District Office of Public
Health,. (OUNZ) Each village has _,a, peoples' f,ommittee with
various divisions for governmental administration. Directly above
the village committee is the district committee and above it. the
Regional committee, and above that the Slovak committee at Bratis-
lava. For effective control of the country the members of the
village committee, district and regional committees, and Slovak
committee are made up of men who are qualified in one special field,
eg Public Health. At the side of these experts are Communists,
usually laymen with unquestioned zeal for Communistic ideology.
The effect of lay control of Public Health.has been to ensure that
the benefits of medical care accrue first to the productive worker
on a priority basis. Priority is governed by the type of work a per-
son performs and governs the extent of benefits, eg, places in
hospitals or sanatoriums right to receive drugs meted out to the
people. The Trnava Public Health Office lay member is a woman (fnu)
Kudiova who is not a physician, but who controls the administration
of the OUNZ. This Communist. control of public health affairs has also
permitted the Slovak civil administration to require any hospital to
conduct courses of nurses training, at any period of the year, or .
to recruit "brigades" of doctors for assignment to areas of priority,
at a moment's notice without regard to the problems of the agencies
from which the doctors have been requisitioned.
Approved For Release 2006/11/09: CIA-RDP82-00457R015800180005-7