In the period of the anti-Japanese revolutionary struggle, Kim Il Sung saw that the genuine public health system was established for the people in guerrilla bases for the first time in history of Korea.
President Kim Il Sung said.
“In this guerrilla zone we must also establish a revolutionary government, enforce democratic reforms, build a school, a hospital, an armoury, a publishing house, etc. and bring about a new revolutionary order.”
In order to establish the popular public health system in guerrilla bases, Kim Il Sung saw that the medical service departments, the people’s public health administration machinery, was set up to give a unified guidance over the public health affairs in the guerrilla bases.
Kim Il Sung saw that the first people’s hospital under the control of the medical service departments was set up to give medical treatment to the people and the guerrillas.
In the first half of the 1930s, there were the medical service departments and hospitals in the guerrilla bases in the form of liberated areas in Macun and Yaoyinggou, Xiaowangqing in Wangqing County, Wangougou in Yanji County set up in the Tuman River areas. In the perfect guerrilla bases, there was a medical herb gathering section under the control of the people’s revolutionary government as well as hospital.
The section preserved different varieties of medical herbs gathered by the people in the bases and processed and prepared medicines with them so as to supply them to the people’s hospital and the guerrillas’ one.
Kim Il Sung saw that the free medical treatment system was enforced for the people in order to establish the popular public health system in the guerrilla bases.
In order to provide the people with as much benefits of the free medical treatment system as possible, Kim Il Sung saw that the people’s hospital, the hospital of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army and the secret clinic were closely combined in keeping with the then combat circumstances to form and unfold a net of medical facilities and adopt circular treatment methods extensively.
Kim Il Sung also saw that the original medical assistance system and medical service forms, that combined the system of supplying army surgeons of the KPRA and the secret clinics, were established in the people’s hospitals in accordance with characteristics of guerilla warfare.
Kim Il Sung saw that the people’s revolutionary government enforced the policy of making medical services free of charge for the people in the guerrilla bases and thus the free medical treatment system was ensured by law in all guerrilla bases.
The popular public health system established in the guerrilla bases thanks to wise leadership of Kim Il Sung was a true one for the people established for the first time in the Korean history, serving as the historic root of the popular public health system to be established in the liberated country.
