The Director of the Sam Hospital Group in Seoul has released a column urgently claiming that North Korean medical care is paralyzed by economic deterioration and food and medicine shortages, and that South Korea and international society must assist North Korea in establishing the basic infrastructure for medical treatment.
Director Park Sang Eun released the column, “Suspension of medical aid to North Korea and the issue of death with dignity,” on the website of the Korea Peace Institute. He pointed out, “North Korea’s health care and medical problems should be solved by cooperation with international society, including South Korea and North Korea. South Korea’s medical assistance is keenly required.”
Park explained, “The current North Korean medical situation has fundamental problems that cannot be solved by shortsighted disease outbreak countermeasures. The establishment of the infrastructure for basic health care should come first; supplying electricity for the operation of medical facilities, bringing about improvements in the quality of water for prevention of infectious disease and solving food problems to prevent malnutrition.”
“In order for these to occur, North Korean society should open and accept the principles of capitalism so as to develop its economy. Additionally, it should reveal its society as it is to the world, so that international society can supply the appropriate aid.”
He added, “At least, minimum medical aid should be resumed right now so that North Korean patients do not die from a sheer lack of basic medicines. It is an issue unrelated to politics or strategic policies, but related to the dignity of people’s lives; it is an urgent issue which should not be delayed.”
Park has visited North Korea in a medical capacity on six occasions, looking around national level hospitals like Pyongyang University Hospital, Kim Man Yoo Hospital, and the First Pyongyang People’s Hospital.
He explained that in such hospitals the facilities are old, while supplies of electricity, heating, water, medicines and reagents are inadequate.
He reported, “The major infant diseases are bacterial stomach diseases, pneumonia, cystitis, parasitic diseases and malnutrition, according to a doctor of pediatrics. The demands of doctors in the field are different from those of high officials’, who tend to demand high-price facilities such as CT and MRI scanners. What doctors want are supplies of worming medicines, vitamins, antibiotics and facilities for intensive care units.”
He was nervous about the poor medical situation, using an example to illustrate his point, “While three out of seven kidney doctors in the Pyongyang University Hospital worked, the others were collecting acorns on mountainsides in order to use them as a substitute medicine for digestive problems.”
