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KMID : 1124020150310040053
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Korean Social Security Studies
2015 Volume.31 No. 4 p.53 ~ p.81
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Qualitative Study on North Korea’s Healthcare System and Healthcare Use: Based on Experiences of Refugees in the 2010s
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Min Ha-Ju
Jeong Hyoung-Sun
Kim Sun-Mi
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Abstract
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To fill the gap of health status between two Korean peoples and thereby to reduce chaos in the process of unification, efforts to augment health level of North Koreans should be preceded. Just like diagnosis should come first before treatment, understanding recent North Korea’s healthcare reality is required to come first. This study tried to figure it out from experiences of North Korean refugees. Through Focus Group Interview (FGI) that was conducted with eleven refugees who had experienced North Korea’s healthcare since 2010, the authors wanted to grasp overall situation of healthcare use including basic infrastructure, health and sanitation environment, healthcare system, healthcare service provision and drug supplies in North Korea. Fundamental health problems in North Korea are due to factors rather beyond healthcare system such as inadequacy of basic social infrastructure including electricity, water and sewage management and food supply. “Free healthcare” magnified as the superiority of socialist nation has become little more than a name, and “Jangmadang” is now a major market for trading drugs and medical services. Residents of North Korea come to Jangmadang before coming to doctors and hospitals, thereby experiencing sometimes side effects (e.g. fake medicine, medicine abuse or misuse, drug addiction etc.). If South Korea leaves current situation of North Korea’s healthcare unsettled, it will boomerang back as a higher reunification cost.
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KEYWORD
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Unification, North Korean refugee, Healthcare use in North Korea, Focus Group Interview, FGI
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