I still think the programme was worth the effort. the sight of hospitals without patients, farms without fields or cattle, the excuses given for these strange sights brought home the full meaning of the phrase 'brain washing'
You do not need to traipse round wards to see patients. Visit any hospital in the UK, the bustle and constant movement of people through it, you will see enough patients in a walk round its main corridors to know they are there in abundance. More to the point the suggestion that patients came in for treatment in the morning and then went home in the after noon, if correct, suggests that it was little more than a minor injuries unit. Leaving the question as to where those with more serious illnesses went, if anywhere, open.
A reporter visiting a country as tightly controlled as North Korea as part of a group of tourists, albeit, all university students, is going by definition to be kept away from anything that their hosts do not want them to see but we do desperately need to know more of this country, the condition of its people and the conditions of their lives - and this was a contribution to that.