The Friends I met in North Korea

The following are a few vignettes from Fr. Gerard Hammond's recent trip to North Korea.

“The friends I met in North Korea” during a recent visit with humanitarian aid for T.B patients (I have changed the names of the friends I met in the North).

This spring, I met Park Jung Ok, at a Tuberculosis Center in North Korea where I helped deliver medicines. As I remember the joyous look on Park Jung Ok’s face as she hugged the box containing her first six-month supply of TB medication.The woman had a husband and a six-year-old waiting for her at home. I prayed that she would take her medicine faithfully, recover, and return to her family. Each visit brings hope. Providing good, long-term treatment to TB patients in the political context of the North-South divide is not easy. But each time I visit North Korea with my fellow medical missioners, I have hope. That’s because I witness first-hand how love and prayers are touching the hearts of patients who struggle each day against despair.

Kim Min Chul is 37. He had been treated for TB but relapsed and needed follow-up care. “I have made a quick recovery because the staff has treated me like family, and made sure that I took my medicine on time. I promise to continue this “forced march” for another year and make a complete recovery!” Thank God, Min Chul is doing well.

Ri Hyun Suk’s story is sad, but I pray for a good outcome. She developed a resistant form of TB that required special medications, which we were able to provide. Soon her appetite and color returned, but her spirits remain low. “Sometimes I wonder if I can make it,” Hyun Suk told me. “I have a 10–and a 12-year-old at home who are crying to see their mother. You have brought this medicine to help and I’m going to try. But this is such a vicious disease. Do you really think I can get well?”

Dr. Kim Pyong Ho had once complained about the severe cold that winter brought to his medical facility in the North. “We just installed the efficient coal briquette heaters that you brought us,” said Dr. Kim. “Now our patients will be warm and happy. We are thankful that you have solved a big problem for us!” Our generator project is another sign of hope. Because of sporadic electric power supplied to hospitals in the North, diagnostic equipment isn’t always usable, and caregivers can’t depend on continuous electricity, even for emergency surgery.
But conditions are starting to change. Our generator projects, deliver dependable electricity to a handful of hospitals with more to come. Doctors and other caregivers can do their jobs with much more assurance. And patients can return to normal lives.

Since beginning our medical missions. I have visited the people of North Korea many times. I fervently believe that if we can stand with them side-by-side against a terrible disease like TB, then one day we will bring reconciliation between the North and the South. With God’s grace, I hope to be the apostle of peace who did all he could to make this dream come true.