National Conference Held for Health Workers

Entering the 1980s, remarkable progress was made in public health service under the wise leadership of President Kim Il Sung and Chairman Kim Jong Il.  

Kim Il Sung made sure that the law on public health was adopted at the fourth session of the sixth Supreme People’s Assembly in April 1980, and later proposed convening a national conference of health workers. 

He summoned a senior official of the Ministry of Public Health on October 11, 1984. He said to him that it had been 13 years since a national conference of health workers was held and that it would be good to convene such a conference again. He then told the official to report details about the event, such as the date of the event and its agenda items, to Comrade Kim Jong Il to obtain the orientation to this end. 

Kim Jong Il meticulously oversaw the preparations for the event and the work for its successful holding. 

In early November and mid-December 1984, he took measures to hold the conference in 1985 to mark the fifth anniversary of the promulgation of the law on public health. On April 11, 1985, he set the date of the event and its schedule as he organized the work for its successful holding. 

Thus, the national conference of health workers came to be held in Pyongyang on April 19, 1985, in the presence of President Kim Il Sung. 

On April 21, Kim Jong Il sent a historic letter entitled, On the Further Improvement of the Public Health Service to those attending the conference.

In the letter he delineated the revolutionary nature of the public health service as a revolutionary undertaking, honourable and worthwhile, geared to protecting the people’s lives and promoting their health, and specified in detail the issues arising in improving and strengthening healthcare at that time. 

The conference served as an important occasion to further develop public health service.