Shortly ago, residents were seeing off a woman, who was leaving an apartment house with a first-aid bag on her shoulder, in front of the entrance to a neighbourhood unit of Puksong-dong No. 2, Phyongchon District, Pyongyang.

“She is our household doctor. When I rang her since an elderly man living on the fifth floor was not well, she came at a breath and gave medical treatment with sincerity,” said Ri Hyang Ok, head of the neighbourhood unit.

“A few days ago, a child in our neighbourhood unit was suddenly ill in bed, and a medical worker visited his home at midnight as if the hospital was situated in front his house,” said a resident.

Household doctors are found everywhere in the DPRK. They all devote themselves to their jobs with the consciousness that they are responsible for the health of residents and the benefits of the socialist healthcare system reach them by their efforts.

For example, household doctors of the county town polyclinic of Sinchon County, South Hwanghae Province, visit the section under their charge every day lest the residents catch a cold in the winter season and pay much attention to taking care of the health of old people and children.

Those at the Sopho Polyclinic in Hyongjesan District, Pyongyang, have found out an effective method of treating an incurable disease by combining Koryo medicine with modern one after making painstaking efforts, thereby bringing residents back to their health.

Under the well-knit system by which they treat patients in the polyclinic in the morning and visit the residents in their charge to cure them in the afternoon, the doctors take timely preventive measures by keeping up with the health conditions of the residents.

Such activities of household doctors show well the spirit of serving the people of the country’s healthcare system.

Decades have passed since the DPRK established the well-knit section doctor system on a nationwide scale.

Such a system helps the doctors of clinics, a terminal institution for medical treatment and prevention, and ri people’s hospitals grasp in detail the health conditions of residents and take necessary prevention and treatment measures to prevent the outbreak of diseases in advance and cure them in time.

It makes sure that marked progress is made in the prevention of infectious diseases and the treatment of diseases and therefore the average life expectancy of people goes up.

The Eighth Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which was held last January, put forward detailed plans to provide the people with better medical benefits by developing socialist healthcare into the most advantageous and advanced public health.