The World Health Organization found itself on Friday in the strange position of defending the quality of healthcare in North Korea from an Amnesty International report.
Amnesty’s report on Thursday described North Korea’s health care system as a shambles, with doctors sometimes forced to perform amputations without anesthesia and working by candlelight in hospitals lacking essential medicine, heat and power. It also raised questions about whether coverage is universal as the WHO claimed, noting that most interviewees said they or a family member had bribed doctors to receive medical care. Those without the means to do so reported that they could get no health assistance at all.
WHO spokesman Paul Garwood said that Thursday’s report by Amnesty was not up to the UN agency’s scientific approach to evaluating health care.
“All the facts are from people who aren’t in the country,” Garwood told reporters in Geneva. “There’s no science in the research.”
The issue is sensitive for the WHO because its director-general, Margaret Chan (陳馮富珍), praised the communist country after a visit in April and described its health care as the “envy” of most developing nations.
Major global relief agencies have been quietly fighting for years to save the lives of impoverished and malnourished North Koreans, even as the government wasted millions on confrontational military programs.
Some groups may fear being expelled from the country if they are openly critical of Pyongyang, which is highly sensitive to outside criticism. Despite such considerations, Chan’s comments were considered uncommonly upbeat.
Garwood and WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib insisted that Amnesty’s report complemented the observations of their boss. The focused on the challenges she outlined for the country, from poor infrastructure and equipment to malnutrition and an inadequate supply of medicines.
But whereas Chan noted that North Korea “has no lack of doctors and nurses,” Amnesty said some people had to walk two hours to get to a hospital for surgery. Chan cited the government’s “notable public health achievements,” while Amnesty said health care remained at a low level or was “progressively getting worse.”
Chaib highlighted the importance of maintaining the WHO’s presence in the country, where its officials do their best to save lives despite “persisting challenges.”
“We are an organization dealing with member states, and we respect the sovereignty of all countries,” Chaib said. “We need to work there to improve the lives of people.”
Sam Zarifi, head of Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific program, said the human rights group stood by its findings.
“We certainly have a lot of restrictions in terms of working in North Korea, but we did our best in terms of capturing the information we could verify,” Zarifi said.
He said Amnesty had spoken to North Koreans as well as to foreign health care and aid workers, and relied heavily on the WHO for information — including the assessment that North Korea spends US$1 per person per year on health care, the lowest level in the world.
The UN estimates that 8.7 million people need food aid in North Korea. The country has relied on foreign assistance to feed much of its population since the mid-1990s when the economy was hit by natural disasters and the regime lost its long-time Soviet benefactor.
Garwood said Amnesty’s research added a needed element to understanding health conditions in North Korea, but added that it didn’t even mention recent improvements in the country as the result of a program funded by South Korea and aided by the WHO.
The UN body claims that maternal mortality has declined by over 20 percent since 2005, and diarrhea cases and deaths in operations have also dropped. It says more than 6,000 doctors and nurses have been trained in emergency obstetric care, newborn care and child illnesses, while clinics have received better material for operations, blood transplants and other medical interventions.
Zarifi, of Amnesty, said the whole debate would be ended if North Korea’s government provided access to monitors so that everyone had a better understanding of the country’s health care system.
“Every indication we have indicates the state of health care in North Korea is dire,” he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing