{"id":64471,"date":"2025-08-19T08:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T23:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/?p=64471"},"modified":"2026-04-06T14:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T05:10:30","slug":"north-koreas-free-healthcare-reality-citizens-turn-to-black-market-for-medicine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-koreas-free-healthcare-reality-citizens-turn-to-black-market-for-medicine\/","title":{"rendered":"North Korea&#8217;s &#8216;free healthcare&#8217; reality: Citizens turn to black market for medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">North Korea promotes its free healthcare system as proof of socialism&#8217;s superiority, but North Koreans say what they actually experience isn&#8217;t &#8220;free healthcare&#8221; but something closer to &#8220;no healthcare at all.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">Medical facilities can&#8217;t provide proper diagnoses or treatments, and medicines are scarce. This has created a widespread belief that &#8220;imported drugs&#8221; are the only real solution for treating illnesses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">A Daily NK source in North Korea said recently that &#8220;various drugs imported through trade are sold in the markets and used to treat seasonal enteritis and food poisoning.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">According to the source, these drugs\u2014about 70% of them made in Russia\u2014were a major import for Ponghwa General Trading Corporation between early and mid-July. Kumgang Trading Corporation also imported medications for state hospitals, including products made in China.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">Imported medications go first to the country&#8217;s top hospitals, including those in Pyongyang and military hospitals, as well as sanatoriums and other facilities for party and government officials. Some of these drugs eventually make their way to markets for public sale.<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"text-xl font-bold text-text-100 mt-1 -mb-0.5\"><em>From state hospitals to street markets<\/em><\/h4>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">The problem is that unlicensed drug merchants sell these foreign medications outside the state&#8217;s official hospitals and healthcare facilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">With drug ingredients labeled in languages few North Koreans can read, people often buy medicines based on &#8220;word of mouth&#8221; or &#8220;gut feeling&#8221; without knowing what&#8217;s actually in them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">&#8220;Nobody believes you can get treated for free in a hospital,&#8221; the source said. &#8220;So people go to drug merchants and buy medications based entirely on the merchant&#8217;s explanation of foreign-language labels\u2014and merchants make it sound like these drugs can cure anything.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">Most medications imported for state hospitals, like Russian-made levofloxacin, ciprofloxacin, and 5-25% glucose bags, make their way from Pyongyang to intermediate regions like Pyongsong and Kaechon through backroom deals. From there, they spread to markets throughout the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">These Russian-made drugs are in high demand. While Chinese medications are more widely available, many people doubt they work. Demand for Russian drugs keeps growing thanks to merchants who claim they&#8217;re immediately effective and positive word-of-mouth from locals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">Most importantly, people buy foreign-made medications because they have little faith in drugs made locally by companies like Sunchon Pharmaceutical Factory and Hamhung Pharmaceutical Factory, the source said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">&#8220;The state constantly brags about free healthcare, but people actually depend on the market\u2014not the state&#8217;s free healthcare\u2014to survive,&#8221; the source said. &#8220;In North Korea, you have to go to the market to buy medicine, and markets depend on foreign trade for medicines.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"whitespace-normal break-words\">&#8220;You can starve without food, but you can&#8217;t cure an illness just by enduring it. People don&#8217;t trust the free healthcare system. So people say they wish the state would let them buy effective medicine\u2014even if they have to pay for it\u2014by allowing trade with foreign countries to flourish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/20250811-2\/\">Read in Korean<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>North Korea promotes its free healthcare system as proof of socialism&#8217;s superiority, but North Koreans say what they actually experience isn&#8217;t &#8220;free healthcare&#8221; but something closer to &#8220;no healthcare at all.&#8221; Medical facilities can&#8217;t provide proper diagnoses or treatments, and medicines are scarce. This has created a widespread belief that &#8220;imported drugs&#8221; are the only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":256,"featured_media":43849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,1360],"tags":[100,274,735,737,747,891,1017,1098,1452],"class_list":["post-64471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-society","tag-markets","tag-pyongyang","tag-trade","tag-public-health","tag-hamhung","tag-drugs","tag-russia","tag-pyongsong","tag-medicine"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.7 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>North Korea&#039;s &#039;free healthcare&#039; reality: Citizens turn to black market for medicine - North Korea News \u2014 Daily NK | Latest DPRK Updates 2026<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dailynk.com\/english\/north-koreas-free-healthcare-reality-citizens-turn-to-black-market-for-medicine\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"North Korea&#039;s &#039;free healthcare&#039; reality: Citizens turn to black market for medicine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"North Korea promotes its free healthcare system as proof of socialism&#8217;s superiority, but North Koreans say what they actually experience isn&#8217;t &#8220;free healthcare&#8221; but something closer to &#8220;no healthcare at all.&#8221; Medical facilities can&#8217;t provide proper diagnoses or treatments, and medicines are scarce. 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