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.

Korean Politics after Death of Roh

On the front page of today's daily paper we have a picture of President Obama walking hand in hand with Nancy Reagan the wife of past President Ronald Reagan. The caption on top: "Their Government and Our Government". This is something they would not ordinarily see in Korea: the present administration and the opposition hand in hand. Many of the Koreans do have a very idealized picture of the kind of government we have in the States.

The scenes they do see on Korean TV are fist fights, emotional outbursts, and the brawling during the sessions. After the death of past President Roh, the feeling of many is that the suicide of Roh was brought about by the unfair dealing with the opposition. This is fueling the antagonism that was there but taking it to another level.

There are many of the opposition who are coming out with statements against the present government's approach to our democracy. Many in the universities are coming together to oppose the way the government is dealing with many of the liberties that the citizens have gained over the years.

There are many in our Korean society who disagree strongly in the way he chose to end his life but sympathize greatly with what he tried to do.There are many Catholic in this number who have been very much for President Roh and felt that he was trying to do something to minimize the gap between the rich and the poor. Fr. Pak the executive officer of the Committee for Life in Seoul said ... "We should respect his desire to make a society that would respect the poor."

The difference between the "conservative" and "liberals" here in Korea on social issues would be very similar to those in the States. For many Roh was the American Obama.

Catholic Teaching on Dying

In a recent decision by the Supreme Court in Korea the doctors treating a comatose woman were told that the life support must be removed as her family requested. This is the first time the court has ruled in favor of a patient's right to die. This decision by the court can be interpreted in many different ways but it did not judge for euthanasia which is the way some are taking it.

The Church in a case where there is no hope of a person in a vegetative state trusts the decision of the medical team who are the specialist to make a conscientious judgment on the continuation of medical treatment.

According to an article in the Catholic paper this week the Church is now concerned with the different words that are being used with different meanings by many in our Korean society. The Catechism of the Church says:“Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of “over-zealous” treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one’s inability to impede it is merely accepted.”

The problem comes when the words that are used have different meanings. “Death with dignity” , “Prolonging life”, “Life with no meaning”,” Passive Euthanasia”, These are words that do not mean the same to everybody. We have a problem with terminology. The Church’s thinking in this area goes back 500 years it is surprising how even within the Church there is not always the same understanding of the terms.

"If morality requires respect for the life of the body, it does not make it an absolute value. It rejects a neo-pagan notion that tends to promote the cult of the body, to sacrifice everything for its sake. (Catechism)

In Catholic Teaching it is very clear that no one is required to continue medical treatment that has no prospects of improving ones health.