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Communications and health
Infrastructures
Although the urban areas of Pamplona and Tudela concentrate over half the population, Navarre has over 900 centres of population, of which 67 percent have fewer than 100 inhabitants. Ensuring the integration of the numerous towns and villages requires a major effort to adapt the network of infrastructures to the standard of living and development attained by their citizens.
Regarding the arrangement of local networks for the supply of water and for sewage, power supply and addressing the problem of solid urban waste, over the past ten years numerous schemes have been undertaken with an estimated investment of 450.75 million euros (75 billion pesetas). Pamplona and its district, especially, have an exemplary system for the selective collection of rubbish for recycling, in which 75 of the local people take part on a voluntary basis.
Roads
Navarre has 3,636 km of roads, 209 pertaining to the category of motorways and dual carriageways, 540 km to the general interest network, 457 km to the regional interest network and 2,427 to local or district interest.
The main network features a radial structure that fans out from Pamplona in the direction of neighbouring autonomous communities and France. The links with San Sebastian-France, Vitoria-Bilbao and Zaragoza-Barcelona involve motorways and dual carriageways, and work is already underway on converting the Pamplona-Estella-Logroño road into a dual carriageway, as well as on improving the Pamplona-France route via Irun. Furthermore, plans are afoot for the dual carriageway Pamplona-Jaca-Huesca and another large capacity road for the Pamplona-Tudela-Medinacelli-Madrid route.
Conscious of the strategic importance of road communications, the Comunidad Foral is developing Road Master Plans (the Master Plan 2002-2009 in currently in force) in order to deploy a safe and modern road network that will consolidate Navarre as a major axis of communications between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe, and the Ebro Valley corridor will ensure access for its inhabitants in an equitable manner throughout the area, thus favouring relations with neighbouring communities and territories.
Navarre has 3,636 km of roads, of which 209 are motorways and dual carriageways.
Navarre has rail links with Madrid, Barcelona and other major cities.
Railway and airport
Insofar as the railway is concerned, Navarre has connections with Madrid and Barcelona, amongst other cities, via the Zaragoza-Alsasua line, which runs to a length of 175 kilometres. Projects have been drawn up for the construction of a High Speed Railway corridor in Navarre that will connect up with the Madrid-Barcelona line, to the south, and with the European network, to the north.
In terms of air travel, Navarre has an airport in Noáin, near Pamplona, with several daily flights to Madrid and Barcelona, in addition to other routes. The airport has a master plan for investments that will cater for the increase in traffic, which currently exceeds 200,000 passengers per year.
Health
The health system is one of the more advanced in Spain. Thanks to the proper organisation of its services as well as the spirit of associationism that exists in our land, the people of Navarre enjoy a healthy lifestyle and longevity. The quality of life is the result of their responsible attitude to fostering healthy living. This complements a modern medical system that customises its services and on average dedicates over 90,000 pesetas / year to each one of the local inhabitants.
The 2001-2005 Health Plan is the palpable expression of health development that has focused its objectives on five essential areas: mental complaints, neurodegenerative illnesses, neuro-cardiovascular diseases, oncological treatment and accident prevention.
Navarre’s public health system operates using a decentralised management model that permits each health centre to adopt a flexible approach to such issues as the free choice of specialist. In addition, online applications have been introduced in the health sphere, thus permitting the immediate transfer of medical records between GP’s and specialist consultants or the arrangements of appointments with specialists from the GP’s own computer. All this has meant that the citizens of the Comunidad Foral have a high opinion of the current state of public health in Navarre.