Otherwise, Everything's Okay

Despite mass starvation and appalling human rights abuses, North Korea has a physician-patient ratio that would make Obamacare proud:

North Korea's health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang.

North Korea -- which does not allow its citizens to leave the country -- has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said.

This allows North Korea to provide comprehensive healthcare, with one "household doctor" looking after every 130 families, said the head of the United Nations health agency, praising North Korea's immunization coverage and mother and child care.

Let's dissect that, one stupid point at a time:

North Korea's health system would be the envy of many developing countries because of the abundance of medical staff that it has available, the head of the World Health Organization said on Friday.

Alright. However (emphasis mine):

North Korea -- which does not allow its citizens to leave the country -- has no shortage of doctors and nurses, in contrast to other developing countries where skilled healthcare workers often emigrate, she said.

Maybe that is the reason why North Korea has a lot of staff kicking around.


The fate of defectors:

The North Korean authorities have executed three people, dispatched three other family members to a political prison camp and exiled an entire other family to rural Yangkang Province for their role in a failed defection attempt, according to a Daily NK source....

Early in July last year Jeong escaped from North Korea to Changbai in China along with his mother, wife and three- and seven-year old daughters. However, in August the family was caught by the Chinese police on their way to Neimenggu, where they planned to cross into Mongolia and from there travel to South Korea.

Their plan foiled, the family was immediately repatriated to North Korea by the Chinese security forces. The North Korean authorities subsequently threw Jeong and his wife into a jail run by the NSA in Yangkang Province, and sent his mother (63) and daughters home.

Following Jeong’s statement and confession, the NSA then arrested friend Song Gwang Cheol, who was responsible for helping Jeong and his family make their defection attempt. Later, after Song’s subsequent interrogation by the NSA, his family received an execution notice.

Jeong, Song and Jeong’s wife were all executed at an unknown location. “Since 1998, the Central Prosecutor Office has issued execution notices to the families of condemned persons,”

The Daily NK’s source explained. “They are killed behind closed doors, and bodies are never returned to the deceased’s families.

Second point:

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, speaking a day after returning from a 2-1/2 day visit to the reclusive country, said malnutrition was a problem in North Korea but she had not seen any obvious signs of it in the capital Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-Il notoriously keeps his flagship capital city in superficially pristine condition:

Only favoured citizens are allowed to reside in the capital of the communist state, and they normally have better access to food than other areas.

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From our first moments in the country, it was obvious that some North Koreans receive special treatment. The train for Pyongyang had 15 cars, but only the three "international compartments" had fans to fight the sweltering heat. Well-dressed North Koreans took up the majority of seats in the compartment. The women wore silk blouses, nice skirts, and high heels, and the men were decked out in good T-shirts, which sometimes showed off their big bellies.

They were the only fat North Koreans that I saw on the trip. The people in the streets of Pyongyang and Kaesong were often downright skinny. In Pyongyang, I had my picture taken with two elementary-school boys in Kim Il-Sung Square, and I could clearly feel their ribs when I put my hands on their backs.

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The eeriest puzzle in the Hermit Kingdom just north of here is not where it hides its nukes, but where it hides its disabled people.

The only time I was allowed into North Korea, years ago, I couldn't find anyone in a wheelchair, on crutches or missing a hand. North Koreans kept insisting there were no disabled people in Pyongyang, the clean and lovely capital of which North Korea is justifiably proud.

''Any handicapped people have voluntarily moved to other parts of our country,'' one official said. Right. The darker explanation is that North Korea systematically exiles mentally retarded and disabled people from the capital, so as not to mar its beauty.

What is it that Director-General Chan failed to notice?

Chan spent most of her brief visit in Pyongyang, and she said that from what she had seen there most people had the same height and weight as Asians in other countries, while there were no signs of the obesity emerging in some parts of Asia.

Ahem:

One study of North Korean refugees compared to South Koreans of the same age found that South Korean young men were 2.3 inches taller than their North Korean counterparts, while the gap among young women was 2.6 inches. Meanwhile, among non-refugee boys and girls living in both countries between the ages of one and a half and six and a half, a separate study found that the height gap was around three inches (varying slightly by age and gender); between six and a half and seven and a half, the height gap was 4.9 inches for girls and five inches for boys.

General-Director Chan notes there is no obesity in a country with mass starvation. Thank God somebody is being vigilant.



General-Director Chan neglected this:

Recently, infectious diseases have been spreading throughout North Korean regions with North Korean authorities in a state of emergency, sources informed.

A source revealed in a phone conversation with the DailyNK on the 15th “There are 4 different diseases spreading throughout North Korea. Scarlet fever, typhoid, paratyphoid and typhus fever” and…the number of deaths caused by the diseases had not yet been released.

What the article does mention is how, thanks to foreign aid, North Korea appears to be a model for developing nations to follow:

But Chan praised a joint project between North and South Korea to improve women's and children's health, which she said was promoting dialogue and trust between the two rivals.

Last month, the WHO said North Korea has reduced deaths from surgery and among women in childbirth under the South Korea-funded program.

Concerning maternal health and women's rights in North Korea:

Defectors report that many prisoners have died from torture, starvation, disease, exposure, or a combination of these causes. North Korean officials reportedly prohibited live births in prison, and forced abortions were performed. The regime controlled many aspects of citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, religion, the press, assembly, and association. A number of repatriated North Koreans faced severe punishment upon their return, including possible execution. The regime also severely restricted freedom of movement and worker rights. There were widespread NGO reports of North Korean women and girls being trafficked in China.

The WHO's trip to North Korea is nothing more than self-serving window-dressing. The pretense of concern is laughable. The compliments are undeserved. Why would a country whose dictator controls every movement made by its slave population be enviable? How does a starving population even compare to a well-fed nation where diseases don't wipe out villages? If all one can comment on the number of physicians but not the problems they face due to tyranny, then what was the point of even going to North Korea?