JOY ELLEN YOON — Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center Near Completion!

In the spring of 2013, the excavation of the rehabilitation center began. We had received prime real estate in the center of the city smack dab in the middle of the Pyongyang Medical School Hospital campus. But, for the longest time it was just a hole in the ground. As we began digging for the basement, foundations from buildings before ours, metal wires, and boulders slowed the construction progress. Ground water swept in and filled the chasm as the construction crew laboriously removed all debris. The crater sat there, filled with water, for months.

Despite the lengthly progress, a significant stride has been made in the DPRK. The Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC) will be the first medical training center of its kind for the non-surgical treatment of spinal injuries and developmental disabilities. Occupying a space of 4,230 squared meters, the center will have the capacity to treat 450 out-patients daily in addition to housing up to 40 long-term in-patients. Plus, two cutting-edge medical specialties are being birthed in the DPRK. The center will not only treat patients but also train medical doctors in graduate specialties for children with cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental disabilities.

Throughout the years, the development of the PYSRC has been delayed on multiple occasions. These delays have included waiting for building permits, renovation permit approvals, a U.S. Treasury Department’s OFAC license, and multiple applications for Special Validation Passports so that U.S. citizens can continue to work inside the DPRK. But despite all of these challenges, Ignis Community has been able to forge on, fulfilling our promises to our donors, our organization, and most importantly to the children and people of North Korea.

Last week a team of medical professionals with Ignis Community visited the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center. Amidst global sanctions, our team was privileged to be granted Special Validation Passports for our medical humanitarian work in the DPRK. Stephen Yoon and the medical team were well-received in Pyongyang. Although we had trained several DPRK doctors in Bobath Therapy last April in China, it had been a year and a half since Stephen was physically in Pyongyang. The first thing he and the team did was tour our nearly finished interior of the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center (PYSRC).

Finished Foyer in the Pyongyang Spine Rehabilitation Center

For the past year, our family has been working hard to raise the funds needed to provide this specialty training hospital for children with behavioral and developmental disabilities in the DPRK, but it was the first time for Stephen to see with his own eyes the fruit of his labor. Walking through the PYSRC seeing the elevator installed, the treatment rooms completed, and the opening foyer to the hospital complete with installed sliding doors brought tears to his eyes. “I could not stop crying,” he shared with me in a text from Pyongyang!

As part of the medical team was a first-time partnering physical therapist. We told her to go in just to observe her first trip, but the DPRK doctors were ready and eager to receive training from her, and the hospital had already prepared a license for her to treat children inside. Both Stephen and our partnering P.T. were able to directly see and treat patients, and we, personally, cannot wait until the medical and rehabilitation equipment is able to go into Pyongyang to fully furnish the hospital and treat hundreds of children with cerebral palsy, autism, and other developmental disabilities.

Stephen Yoon Treating a Child with Cerebral Palsy in the DPRK

As the building is now complete externally and internally, all that is needed is for medical and rehabilitation equipment to furnish the center. Despite not having all the proper equipment, though, North Korean doctors are already treating patients on the third floor of PYSRC. It is heartwarming so see the vision of Ignis Community and our partners come to completion! All of this has been possible through the help and support from friends and supporters of Ignis Community, and we are truly grateful.

We are also humbled to continually work with not only with the patients and their families but also with our colleagues from the Pyongyang Medical University Hospital who share the same heart to help these children with developmental disabilities.

Our vision is that this is just the start of many opportunities to come that will impact the children of the DPRK. As we keep pushing on in perseverance and with great anticipation for what is to come, the goal of Ignis Community is to open the PYSRC, functioning at full capacity, by the fall of 2020!