Children’s Health and Social System of the DPRK

 Children’s Health and Social System of the DPRK

Anyone in the world will be surprised to know all the social benefits the DPRK provides to promote the health of children.

In the country children are born in wonderful maternity hospitals built in different parts under the care of the state and society, the typical example of which is the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, widely known as the “babies’ palace,” in Pyongyang, the capital city. According to some data, over 40 years after the maternity hospital was inaugurated, over 920 000 children including 500 sets of triplets and quadruplets were born there and left it in good health.

Under the special care of family doctors in the clinics in the places of their residence, children receive vaccines against various diseases. The law of the DPRK on providing the children’s rights stipulates that children have the right to the benefits of complete and universal free medical care. The state bears all the expenses—diagnosis, test, medicine, inpatient services, trip to and stay in sanatoria, checkup, consultation, vaccination and prostheses for all the children. Children with no parent or guardian to take care of them are brought up at the state expense at baby homes, orphanages and schools for orphans.

In the country the institutions for nursing and upbringing children like nurseries and kindergartens, and schools and extracurricular educational bases have professional medical workers whose duties are to take care of the children. In 2013, the modern Okryu Children’s Hospital equipped with a helipad was built in the beautiful Munsu area in Pyongyang.

The country has also a nationwide system for managing the nutrition of children on a scientific manner.

There are a large number of nurseries and kindergartens across the country, and each city and county has an agency for the supply of materials to nurseries and kindergartens. The main duty of the agency is to supply milk, meat, eggs, fruits, vegetables, confectionery and other nutritious foods to nurseries and kindergartens. Each of the provincial, city and county people’s committees, which are government bodies, has an official in charge of the nurseries in the respective areas under their control and operates a mobile training course for improving the qualifications and roles of nursery teachers.

All nurseries and kindergartens work out menus for their children on the basis of a deep knowledge of their constitutional characteristics and favourite foods, at the same time as taking thoroughgoing measures to prevent them from developing diseases common to children.

The country adopted the Law of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea on Childcare in February 2022, enshrining in law the provision of dairy produce and other nutritious foods to the children of nursery and kindergarten ages across the country at state expense.

Once, a foreign journalist asked a nurse at the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, “What do you think the first cry of these children mean?” As the nurse hesitated a little, unable to answer the unexpected question, the foreigner said: “I think the children born in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would ask, ‘How much benefit will I receive after my birth?’ That’s true. You may not feel it because you live enjoying such great happiness.”

 The country’s social system established for the promotion of the health of children can be proudly called an advanced system.