In March, for the first time in five years since North Korea shut its borders following the outbreak of Covid, a group of Western tourists were able to visit the country. 

A BBC article detailed the trip made by the group to the northeast city of Rason, close to the Russian and Chinese borders. It has its own special economic zone used to attract foreign investment into the country. 

Intriguingly, the group visited a “new, fully stocked pharmacy”. But with precious few images or details to glean from the article, C+D was curious to know more. 

Domestic and foreign choice 

Tour guide Zoe Stephens visited Rason in the first week of March, shortly before Noth Korea announced it closed its borders again for tourists. 

She works for Koryo Tours who organise trips to North Korea, and also shares her travelling by vlogging on YouTube and TikTok. 

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Her first impressions of the pharmacy were that it was a “pretty standard retail shop”. 

“When we’re used to seeing advertisements or a sign out front, the pharmacy was just a very inconspicuous building on the corner of a street and you don’t know what it is until you walked inside,” Stephens tells C+D. 

“But every shop in North Korea is very non-commercialised. So unless you read Korean, they’re very hidden away because a restaurant will literally be called restaurant, a coffee shop just called coffee shop.” 

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There were two floors for the pharmacy, with the visiting group Stephens was a part of taken straight to the second floor to see the “best stuff”. 

“The second floor has all of the foreign products and fancier, luxury Korean products. They had gift packs of different face creams.  

“They had sun cream and various cosmetic items more aimed at women. It was 70-80% Korean and they had Chinese and Japanese products too.” 

Ginseng 

But one of its standout products was the variety of ginseng available to purchase, a popular root that is used in Chinese and Korean medicines. 

“They had many ginseng products but also the ginseng root for sale in different grades as well from quite cheap to expensive,” Stephens says. 

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There were around four staff members on the second floor, and Stephens said some of them spoke Chinese to help with any Chinese customers that would visit the special economic zone. 

“The first floor was busier and had more Koreans. There were no prices that I saw. It felt like more of a pharmacy, with more medication. 

“The woman behind the counter was dressed more like a pharmacist. There was medication behind her so it could be she grabs it with or without prescription.” 

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Stephens remembers from a trip to Pyongyang years ago that she saw a pharmacy within a department store too. 

“That was very much a private healthcare feel. Some of the medication would be from Russia, China, Japan as well as North Korea.” 

Free healthcare 

There has been limited coverage on pharmacies in North Korea, with one notable insight coming from a clip that NBC broadcasted from one of the country’s state-run media outlets. 

It shows Kim Jong Un visit a pharmacy during Covid looking at the glass cabinets full of products. 

Other reporting from news websites dedicated to North Korea, such as Daily NK and NK News, have reported in recent years about crackdowns on pharmacies selling medicines at higher prices than the agreed state-set ones. 

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It also shared in 2022 that the government had ordered more pharmacies to be built, and in March it was reported Russia had agreed to help North Korea “modernise” its pharmaceutical industry. 

From what she has seen from her visits, Stephens believes healthcare for North Koreans is free. 

A 2012 World Health Organisation report backs this up in part as it revealed that “all drugs are dispensed free to patients”. 

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“Although it’s free, you have to wait and so you can go privately if you want,” Stephens says.  

“People with money can probably pay to get better care or extra medication. For the domestic market, the foreign products are probably more valuable and sought after.” 

But she adds that “considering I’ve only ever seen one of two pharmacies in the country, I don’t feel they play a big role, not like they do in the UK at least”. 

Locals are the best 

Outside of her visit to the pharmacy, Stephens enjoys doing the “normal stuff” on her visits to North Korea, such as going to the beach or hiking. 

Her desire to visit the country was sparked during her studies in Japan when she wanted to find out “if what the media says about North Korea is what it’s really like”. 

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“It doesn’t paint the full picture,” she says, adding her favourite part of the visits is meeting the people who are not often portrayed in the media as much. 

“Visiting the guides, some of whom are friends, and all the people I often see in the same coffee shops, hotels. 

“They like to drink, smoke, make jokes and laugh and do all the same things that humans do!”