The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea exerts great efforts in further developing the universal free medical care system, regarding public health service as an image of its socialist system and a major symbol which demonstrates the tangible benefits of the system enjoyed by its people.
This is inconceivable separated from the devoted and tireless efforts made by Kim Jong Un, President of the State Affairs, who prioritizes the protection of the people’s lives and their health promotion over anything else.
Since he began to lead the country and people, he paid close attention to public health.
In summer 2012 he visited the construction site of the Breast Tumour Institute of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital. Despite sultry weather, he looked around it in detail and said: It is pointless to build a fancy building if the patients fail to get proper treatment; what counts more than the construction is to appoint competent doctors and researchers with rich clinical experience in mastopathy and breast cancer and to equip the institute with state-of-the-art facilities. Thanks to the meticulous care of the state leader, the institute was built on the Taedong riverside in the capital city of Pyongyang as a centre of medical service and scientific research that specializes in the prevention and treatment of mammary gland diseases including mastopathy and breast cancer and is equipped with modern medical equipment for galactography, ablation of mammary gland tissues, and even for multifunctional X-ray, CT, ultrasonographic and, electrocardiographic examinations, which can be seen only in some developed countries.
The Ryugyong Dental Hospital, inaugurated in October 2013, also tells a moving story of Kim Jong Un’s devotion.
In March the following year he visited the hospital and looked around the examination room and several treatment rooms, giving detailed guidance over the management and operation of the hospital. He felt very pleased, saying that a great number of people visiting the hospital meant that the medical service was briskly underway, and that the new hospital proved its worth. Then he continued: Construction of the hospital was not aimed at giving publicity to the fact that we were building a world-class dental hospital, but at ensuring that the people can enjoy all the benefits of socialism in good health; the hospital should not become a site for visit but a site of devoted service for the people through effective treatment.
The Okryu Children’s Hospital, which was named by Kim Jong Un, also embodies his scrupulous care.
It is a characteristic hospital that combines healthcare service and education. It is equipped with all the facilities for the treatment and health promotion of children of different ages–treatment rooms of different purposes, surgical procedure rooms, operating theatres, in-patient rooms and even a helipad. The artworks inside, which cater to the juvenile psychology, are associated with Kim Jong Un’s considerate measure to relieve the children of pain while under treatment. The classrooms here give the young in-patients lessons, which are missing.
In 2016 the Ryugyong General Ophthalmic Hospital opened to the public in the hospital village on the Taedong riverside of Pyongyang.
With a site area of over 5 950 sq m and a total floor space of 11 800 sq m, the hospital is made up of a four-storeyed out-patient ward and an eight-storeyed in-patient ward. It is a multi-functional and comprehensive medical care facility with a shop that calibrates and manufactures various kinds of spectacles.
It has more than ten out-patient treatment rooms, 13 optometry rooms, 5 operating theatres, 27 in-patient rooms and up-to-date equipment for excimer laser treatment, vitrectomy, laser-scanning tomography, cornal endothelial examination and so on.
Kim Jong Un, who proposed its construction and designated its site, gave his opinions on its design several times and paid close attention to its construction, personally visiting the construction site.
During his on-site guidance, he said: The rumour must have spread that a general ophthalmic hospital is under construction here; the people prefer the construction of hospitals to the construction of theatres; many more hospitals should be built so that the people can enjoy the substantial benefits of the socialist public health system.
When he visited the completed hospital, he expressed his satisfaction, saying that it was really what he had wanted to do for the people.
Such stories are not confined to the hospitals in the capital city.
In October 2020, the Samjiyon City People’s Hospital in Ryanggang Province in the northernmost part of the country was newly built into a model of the regional hospitals.
While looking around the construction sites in Samjiyon, Kim Jong Un acquainted himself with the conditions of the hospital’s staff and saw to it that the green area was increased, trees of fine species were planted around the hospital and resting areas were laid out properly for the patients.
Samjiyon is a city in the mountainous area, 1 300 metres above sea level. But the local People’s Hospital is very modern and has specialist departments such as emergency, internal, surgical, pediatric, obstetrical and gynecological ones and a dental branch hospital which are well-appointed with state-of-the-art equipment and appliances. Multifunctional telemedicine system is established and the healthcare service is put on a high level of IT basis. It also has well-furnished in-patient rooms, physical exercise room, rehabilitation room, children’s playing area and indoor park.
Kim Jong Un paid close attention to strengthening the material and technical foundations of the public health sector, too.
In 2019 while on a visit to the Myohyangsan Medical Appliances Factory, he said that in order for people to enjoy sufficient and modern healthcare service, it was necessary to radically improve the material and technical foundations of the public health sector, and took highly significant measures aimed at renovating the factory into a model and iconic factory that would play the vanguard role in the medical appliances industry. When he visited the renovated factory, he highly praised it for having developed into a cutting-edge one capable of mass-producing modern operating tables, delivery beds, examination tables, hospital trolleys, universal chairs for ENT treatment, multifunctional dentist’s chairs and other quality medical appliances.
Under his wise leadership, over the past ten years medical oxygen factories in the capital city and provinces, the Pyongyang Dental Hygiene Goods Factory and Huichon Hospital Beds Factory have been built in a modern style, further consolidating the material and technical foundations of the public health sector.
In October last year a grand military parade was held in Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang to celebrate the 75th founding anniversary of the WPK. In his speech Kim Jong Un warmly thanked the people across the country for being healthy and free from illness, without a single person having fallen victim to the malignant virus.
