Kim Jong Un, the General Secretary of North Korea’s Workers’ Party, has announced plans to open four new hospitals in provincial areas by the end of this year. This declaration follows the recent inauguration of the Pyongyang General Hospital, which took 5 years and 8 months to complete, and the opening of the Kangdong County Hospital. These developments signal Kim’s growing confidence in bolstering the country’s healthcare infrastructure.
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Workers’ Party, reported on Thursday that Kim attended the completion ceremony of the Kangdong County Hospital the previous day.
In his speech, Kim said that in ten days, the country would enter the last month of 2025. He said that with the completion of the Kangdong County Hospital, North Korea would have established six modern medical facilities this year, including the Pyongyang General Hospital, hospitals in Kusong City and Yonggwang County, and emergency treatment centers in the Wonsan Kalma coastal tourist area. He described this as a real transformation.
A South Korean Unification Ministry official speculated that the six facilities Kim mentioned likely include the Pyongyang General Hospital, hospitals in Kangdong, Kusong, and Yonggwang, and two facilities in the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist area. This interpretation is based on Kim’s reference to emergency treatment centers in the Wonsan-Kalma area.
The Pyongyang General Hospital, long considered Kim’s pet project, was completed after 5 years and 7 months of construction and opened its doors after 5 years and 8 months. Ground was broken on March 17, 2020, with an initial completion target of October 10 that year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and UN Security Council sanctions impeding the import of hospital equipment caused significant delays.
Despite Kim’s pledge in his policy speech at the Supreme People’s Assembly last January to complete the Pyongyang General Hospital by 2024, this goal was not met. The hospital finally opened its doors in October of this year.
Buoyed by the completion of the Pyongyang hospital, North Korea appears to be launching a race to build hospitals. Since February, the regime has declared this year as the first year of the health revolution, constructing modern health facilities not only in Pyongyang but also in provincial cities and counties. The hospitals in Kangdong, Yonggwang, and Kusong were slated for completion this year as model facilities.
As part of this initiative, the Kangdong County Hospital was the first to be completed on Wednesday. Construction of the remaining hospitals seems to be accelerating as the year-end approaches. The newly completed Kangdong County Hospital was built in a remarkably short 9 months.
Kim has been particularly hands-on with hospital construction this year, conducting on-site inspections ten times since February – an average of once a month.
However, some observers question the quality of these new medical facilities. While North Korea touts the Pyongyang General Hospital as modern, critics argue that only the interior is contemporary, while the medical equipment is outdated. Published photos suggest that the medical technology is limited to basic hospital equipment, such as older CT scanners and X-ray machines, with no evidence of more advanced equipment, such as MRI machines.
Similarly, South Korean authorities have assessed that the Kangdong County Hospital, while equipped with operating rooms and administrative offices, appears to have only CT scanners and X-ray machines.
Despite these concerns, North Korea is expected to spotlight healthcare as a central focus of its public welfare policy at the upcoming 9th Congress of the Workers’ Party, likely to be held early next year.
At the Pyongyang General Hospital’s opening ceremony, Kim acknowledged that the material and technical foundation of the healthcare system is weaker than that of any other sector, and hospital construction is particularly lagging. He indicated that at the 9th Party Congress, he would announce plans to establish specialized design agencies for health facilities, create dedicated organizations for healthcare modernization, construct a second Pyongyang General Hospital, and build central hospital-level general hospitals in each province.
As North Korea strengthens its ties with China and Russia, there is growing interest in whether the regime will seek international cooperation to expand its health and medical infrastructure. Analysts expect that Pyongyang will actively pursue not only construction materials for hospitals but also medical equipment and personnel from its allies.