A showpiece hospital announced by Kim Jong-un at the outbreak of Covid-19 is finally finished five years past its deadline – but there’s still one crucial thing missing. The dictator orderedbe built in the heart of his capital in March 2020, setting an ambitious deadline for October of that year.

But the deadline came and went, and regime propaganda fell silent about the project, which sat unfinished even as the pandemic subsided. Now the hospital is finally completed and a has been photographed touring its interior with his entourage. But it still can’t open to the public because it lacks one crucial requirement – medical equipment.

expert Jacob Bogle said a variety of factors had combined to leave the hospital empty.
He said: “International sanctions and North Korea’s own border lockdown made it impossible for the government to acquire the needed equipment and medications.

“Also, according to Kim Jong-un, the hospital faced problems because the project commission failed to create proper budgets and funding mechanisms.”

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Propaganda footage of the hospital reveals its cavernous atrium, its polished corridors, its waiting rooms, restaurant, conference suite, and helipad. But the 12-minute newsreel didn’t show a single hospital bed, with the camera cutting away when Kim Jong-un entered a patient suite.

There was also no footage of operating theatres, consultation rooms, laboratories, radiography suites, or MRI facilities. A regime mouthpiece only confessed that the hospital still lacked medical equipment in the final line of its fawning 1,300-word report.

The article said that the facility was “expected to be inaugurated in October this year” after the “assembly of medical equipment” and its “trial operation”. Mr Bogle, who has created a comprehensive map of North Korea from satellite photos, said the exterior was mostly completed by the original October 2020 deadline.

But importing medical equipment was tougher. He said: “Foreign suppliers need to request waivers from the UN’s 1718 Committee which oversees sanctions compliance for North Korea. They may also need to request separate waivers from their own governments, depending on what unilateral sanctions they may have imposed. This all slows the process down considerably.”

He continued: “This isn’t because something like an MRI machine is inherently a military threat. It’s because components, chemicals – MRIs for example require large amounts of liquid helium – and software can be altered or otherwise converted into having a wide range of unintended uses.

“They could also be sent to military or facilities that only serve the Kim family. And illicitly imported medical goods could also be re-exported to earn foreign currency – all of these activities are prohibited.”

Kim Jong-un hasn’t helped himself either. Mr Bogle said: “North Korea also complicates matters by generally refusing to allow outside organisations to monitor the delivery of goods. Even when it came to simple things like masks, gloves, and the Covid vaccine, Kim Jong-un refused nearly all offers of assistance during the pandemic.”

If the hospital does ever open, access to it is likely to be dependent upon a person’s status or “songbun” – which reflects their loyalty to the dictator. Mr Bogle said: “The hospital is supposed to be open to all North Koreans, but historically, hospital access has been affected by one’s ‘songbun’ as well as one’s ability to pay.

“Despite claiming to have a free, universal healthcare system, most doctors are poorly paid and rely on ‘donations’ from their patients. In more rural settings, this can even extend to patients needing to provide their own fresh IV needles and medication. Or they risk having to re-use needles because there is such a limited supply.” Learn more about Jacob’s work at