North Korea’s Central Public Prosecutors Office recently ordered a nationwide crackdown on pharmacies that violate a government mandate to sell medicines and other medical supplies at state-set prices.
According to a Daily NK source in North Korea on Monday, in its report to the recent Eighth Session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly, the Central Public Prosecutors Office said some pharmacies received criminal punishments last year for violating state policy to standardize prices, selling medicines and medical supplies at prices they set themselves.
The source said prosecutors reported to the Supreme People’s Assembly that they carried out inspections last year when people complained they could not buy medicines because certain pharmacies in Pyongyang’s Taesong District, Hamhung’s Donghungsan District and Wonsan were selling state-produced medicines and medical products at prices higher than those set by the state.
The Central Public Prosecutors Office sent documents to prosecutors offices nationwide outlining measures to address this problem, sternly warning that there must be no repeat of the behavior this year.
The stern warning reflects the government’s belief that “capitalistic” drug supply systems must be “corrected” while state-led emergency quarantine efforts continue, the source explained.
In fact, the Central Public Prosecutors Office called on prosecutors offices nationwide to sternly punish pharmacies that violate state policy, telling the prosecutors that the government intends to sell and supply medicines and medical supplies to the people at state-set prices.
In its instructions to prosecutors, the Central Public Prosecutors Office said the officials should mercilessly punish pharmacies “in accordance to socialist criminal law” if they are discovered hiding medicines such as the antibiotics amoxicillin and co-trimoxazole and fever medicines aspirin and paracetamol with a view to be sold to people at arbitrarily set prices. These medicines are “urgently needed to fight wintertime diseases,” the instructions added.
PHARMACIES CAPITALIZE ON “AUTHENTIC” PRODUCTS
Public demand for medicines and medical supplies sold by pharmacies is high because products sold in pharmacies are widely considered “authentic.”
Some pharmacies in big cities capitalize on this by hiding drugs to sell at prices higher than state or market prices, a phenomenon the Central Public Prosecutors Office has moved to eradicate.
In fact, the document the Central Public Prosecutors Office issued to prosecutors reminded them that “the heart of state quarantine efforts is scientific prescriptions and precise treatments based on the socialist public healthcare system, and that the Workers’ Party’s consistent policy has been that in these efforts, pharmacies must be a medical safe space the people can trust.”
It also called on all prosecutors to take the lead “in improving the state’s medicine supply system by mercilessly punishing people and units that are barriers to this.”
In its instructions to prosecutors, the Central Public Prosecutors Office also called on the officials to bolster surveillance and restrictions on other behavior that violates party healthcare policy. For example, prosecutors were ordered to investigate cases where donjuLiterally "masters of money," donju refers to people who hav... More, North Korea’s wealthy entrepeneurial class, have been building pharmacies, paying pharmacy rents, and determining the inventories and staff of pharmacies.
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
Please direct any comments or questions about this article to dailynkenglish@uni-media.net.
