A pregnant North Korean mother and her child died at one of Pyongyang’s top women’s hospitals after she was unable to pay a bribe for treatment, Radio Free Asia reported Wednesday.
The tragedy occurred at Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, widely considered the country’s best hospital for women’s health, and has already led to the dismissal of six obstetricians. After having been unable to pay the necessary bribe, the pregnant woman allegedly died as a result of a “respiratory arrest.”
“There was a complaint from a local citizen that a pregnant woman died unfairly due to widespread corruption [including demands for bribes] at Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, which is advertised as a free modern medical facility,” a source from Pyongyang told RFA’s Korean Service while visiting Dandong in China. “The person who made the complaint was a relative of the woman who died.
“As it became difficult for her to breathe, she went to see a doctor at Pyongyang Maternity Hospital, but she was forced to sit in the waiting room because she didn’t bribe [hospital personnel],” he continued. “She ended up dying because of respiratory arrest, and so did the baby.”
The source also claimed the hospital tried to absolve itself of her death by blaming her local obstetrician.
“After [her] sudden death, Pyongyang Maternity Hospital said the local obstetrician in Songyo district [was at fault] for not properly examining the mother’s health while she was in the early stages [of pregnancy,] and had no treatment plan [in place],” he said. “The woman’s family said she would never have died if they had treated her in time.”
The source claimed the hospital fired six obstetricians at the hospital over the case to silence the protests of the capital’s elite, the only sector of the public with access to the hospital. North Korea operates under a strict caste system known as songbun that bans the lower castes from entering Pyongyang at all, much less using its top facilities. Cast rank is determined by family loyalty to dictator Kim Jong-un.
RFA’s source added that cases of corruption had damaged the hospital’s reputation among the elite, as even among them there are many who cannot afford the bribes.
“Pyongyang Maternity Hospital used to be called ‘the cradle of happiness’ because of their [quality] free-of-charge medical care. They even helped women pregnant with triplets from other regions of the country [back in the 1990s],” he explained. “But now in the Kim Jong Un era, Pyongyang Maternity Hospital gives preference to the families of powerful high-ranking officials, and ordinary women need to bribe doctors to deliver their babies.”
“My close friend is an obstetrician and I was surprised when I went to his house,” he continued. “I don’t know how much he receives in bribes, but at his house he has foreign-made furniture and his living standards seem to be higher than even members of the Central Party.”
Despite claiming to have high standards of universal health care as part of their communist system, the country is believed to have one of the worst healthcare systems in the world. Although standards have improved since the famine of the 1990s, The New Humanitarian explains that “levels of malnutrition, maternal health, and tuberculosis are worrying enough, but a lack of accurate data on HIV/AIDS and hepatitis B presents new cause for alarm.”
According to North Korea’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the maternal mortality rate has fluctuated between 62.7 and 82 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in recent years, compared with 11 deaths per 100,000 in South Korea.
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