This presents another question. Patients whose condition fits the definition of a legally defined communicable disease and who have severe symptoms can be placed in single rooms without having to pay for it themselves. However, those with mild symptoms, including enterovirus and novel influenza patients, are not entitled to the same state subsidy, although from a medical point of view they should be isolated to a suitable extent. That being the case, hospitals are compelled to ask such patients to pay out of their own pockets, and it is then largely a matter of whether the individuals or their families are willing and able to do so.
On the one hand, local health departments are imposing measures to control the spread of swine flu, such as asking students with flu symptoms, even mild ones, not to go to school.
On the other hand, however, they say that hospitalized patients with mild symptoms do not need to be isolated, and that hospitals will have to absorb the cost of putting such patients in individual rooms if the patients cannot or will not pay themselves. This is an obvious contradiction and runs counter to the principle of protecting patients. The government must come up with a better solution for this epidemic and for others in the future.
Lee Ping-ing is the secretary-general of the Taiwan Pediatric Association and an associate professor of pediatrics at the National Taiwan University Hospital.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
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