North Korean leader Kim Jong Un approved interior designs last year for the country’s “first” modern general hospital, state media has revealed, a rare sign of activity on the stalled project two and a half years after it was supposed to be complete.

Kim approved department signage and information board designs for the Pyongyang General Hospital in late June 2022, according to a state TV report on this month’s national industrial design expo. The approval came around the time of a nationwide COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown.

A program on last year’s spring expo showed Kim also approved hospital uniform designs in Oct. 2021. 

The DPRK leader repeatedly warned builders at the hospital’s March 2020 groundbreaking ceremony to meet a firm Oct. 10 deadline for completion that year, saying the “health and safety of our people” would not be properly protected until it was opened. 

“We can neither leave the construction undone nor remain seated idly until good conditions are created” to complete the project, he added.

Kim also said builders would “experience many difficulties and trials” but demanded officials work around “the mean sanctions and blockade of the hostile forces” to acquire advanced medical equipment.

However, while exterior construction appeared mostly complete by the Oct. 2020 deadline, Pyongyang General Hospital remains unopened and largely ignored by state media.

This could stem from difficulties acquiring the expensive equipment Kim demanded due to U.N. sanctions and the country’s own pandemic-related trade restrictions. 

This comparison of high-resolution images of the Pyongyang General Hospital taken in Oct. 2020 soon after the project’s deadline (left) and in March 2023 (right) shows that the construction site’s exterior look has not changed much in the interim | Images: Planet Labs, edited by NK News

Planet Labs high-resolution satellite imagery shows that covered materials temporarily appeared in front of the hospital front entrance from February to March this year, likely related to interior construction or installing equipment.

The construction site in central Pyongyang appears largely similar to how it looked in late 2020, however, and there have been no major signs of an imminent opening ceremony. 

An even larger project, the east coast Wonsan-Kalma beach tourist zone project, has also yet to open despite Kim reportedly approving designs for its signage in 2021.

Amid delays on these major health and leisure projects, Kim Jong Un has appeared to prioritize the allocation of state resources toward housing and greenhouse construction, nuclear weapon development and personal mansion projects. 

Edited by Arius Derr