An evaluation of a database from a North Korean smartphone software reveals that Pyongyang has way more medical services than anyplace else within the nation. The evaluation means that North Koreans in rural areas battle to obtain correct medical care.
Every day NK obtained a database file known as healths.db used within the “well being” app on North Korean smartphones. The file incorporates details about 193 medical services — 26 hospitals, 119 pharmacies, 21 pharmaceutical vegetation, 13 medical analysis labs and 14 sanatoriums — in North Korea’s 105 cities and counties.
The checklist, final up to date in 2023, solely consists of services registered for app customers. It will probably’t be thought of a complete checklist of all medical services in North Korea.
Nonetheless, the database makes clear that North Korea’s medical infrastructure is concentrated in Pyongyang, revealing the medical imbalance between the capital and the provinces.
The most important focus of medical services is in Pyongyang’s Central District, house to 37 services altogether — one hospital, 28 pharmacies, six pharmaceutical vegetation and two medical analysis labs. Different capital districts with massive numbers of medical services are Pyongchon (34), Taedonggang (32), Mangyongdae (31) and Potonggang (29).
In distinction, no hospitals or pharmacies are listed for 55 counties that characterize round half of the cities and counties within the database. That confirms the stark disparity in medical infrastructure between Pyongyang and the provinces.
Capital dominates pharmaceutical manufacturing
Notably, sanatoriums are the one class of medical facility not concentrated within the capital. In actual fact, all of the sanatoriums listed within the database are situated within the provinces.
Additionally putting is the truth that eight districts of Pyongyang — together with Jung, Pyongchon and Taedonggang — have each pharmaceutical analysis services and manufacturing services. Mangyongdae, specifically, hosts 11 pharmaceutical vegetation and three medical analysis labs, suggesting that the district is the middle of the North Korean medical trade.
The shut proximity of pharmaceutical analysis and manufacturing seems aimed toward maximizing the effectivity of each. Having new medicines produced at factories close to the labs the place they had been developed is presumably an effort to create synergy between human and materials sources, whereas shortening the timeframe from improvement to manufacturing.
As well as, the database consists of the e-mail and residential addresses of facility representatives. All of the emails have the area @pt.web.kp, with “kp” being North Korea’s top-level area, “web” signifying a network-related group and “pt” presumably being North Korea’s Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
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