The international community is now in the grip of horror and apprehensions due to the rapid spread of COVID-19.

This being the situation, the DPRK had a ground-breaking ceremony of the Pyongyang General Hospital on March 17.

The project was discussed at the Fifth Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea held in late December last year. It is not an easy job to complete this gigantic project in the run-up to the 75th founding anniversary of the WPK (October 10, 1945) in the face of the harshest-ever circumstances, both internal and external.

It is the firm determination and will of the WPK to present a modern and splendid general hospital to the people in a matter of little more than 200 days.

The DPRK has all material and technical conditions to substantially provide its people with the benefits of free health care. Hospitals, clinics and other medical service bases are found in all residential areas and a nationwide telemedicine system has already been established. Medical workers visit households under their charge to learn about the health conditions of residents and take preventive measures. Thanks to this district doctor system, all the working people lead a happy life under constant medical care.

In recent years alone, the Breast Tumour Institute of the Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, Ryugyong Dental Hospital, Okryu Children’s Hospital and Ryugyong General Ophthalmic Hospital have been built in the Munsu area of Pyongyang, also known as a hospital village. All of them are provided with modern medical facilities and staffed with competent doctors.

But the WPK thinks that they are merely like grains of sand on a mountain.

Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un in his speech at the ground-breaking ceremony of the hospital said as follows: “Our Party regards the people-first principle as its inherent nature and sacred political creed. So, protecting and improving the health of the people is a most pressing and honourable revolutionary undertaking, which it should shoulder and fulfil without fail, whatever the situation.”

He broke ground first to signal the start of the project and personally pressed the button of the blasting device.

The WPK makes selfless, devoted efforts for the good of people, regarding them as the greatest and dearest existence. It is a source of the greatest happiness and encouragement for the WPK that its people should be leading a healthy and cultured life by benefitting from the most advanced medical services provided under the socialist public health system. This is the essence of its politics of loving the people.

Thanks to the politics, another asset conducive to the promotion of the people’s health and their wellbeing will be built in the best place of the capital city of Pyongyang.