A recent article in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) said flushing old medicines down the toilet pollutes the environment. In actual fact, recycling medicines does not only pollute the environment, it is also a waste of health insurance resources.
Speaking from my own experience, the hospital where I work receives medicines that patients do no want each day. Many expensive medicines are returned unopened to pharmacies, where they are all destroyed. These medicines are just the tip of the iceberg, as even more are never returned but just thrown away by patients themselves.
The medicines that are thrown away are funded by the health insurance fees that each citizen pays. I get upset every time I see this waste, which has been helped along by low-priced health insurance policies. It is a problem that has been upsetting pharmacists for a long time.
For example, the hospital where I work is very busy on Saturdays, sometimes even more so than weekdays, because on Saturdays, Taiwanese people doing business in China come to our hospital to get their medicine before they go back to China. Each time they come, they take two months worth of medication. Why don’t they see doctors and get medicine in China? While China’s national income is lower than Taiwan’s, it costs more than in Taiwan to see a doctor there and the quality of its medicine is inferior to ours. When chatting with other pharmacists recently, someone told me that overseas Chinese from the US and Canada try to use personal connections to join Taiwan’s health insurance system because it has given Taiwan the cheapest medical care environment in the world. I have even heard that there are people who get the same medicine from many different hospitals here and then sell them in China.
The Department of Health handles this by demanding that municipal hospitals and local healthcare centers countrywide set up medicine return sites for unwanted medicines or by asking local pharmacies to help collect unwanted medicine, but these are only temporary solutions. To really solve the problem we must encourage citizens to keep a record of the medicines they are taking and to remind their doctors of how much they have taken to avoid situations where doctors repeatedly prescribe the same medicine when it is not needed.
We should teach Taiwanese to get into the habit of telling their doctors not to fill prescriptions if they have leftover medicine. This can help save some of the costs of medicine. Starting by focusing on the interests of our citizens and spreading the message around is the only way to stop wasting medical resources. Even more importantly, we should look at the overall health insurance system and put an end to the systemic waste of resources, for this is the only way to protect the medical rights and interests of Taiwanese citizens.
Chen Honyi is a pharmacist.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, people have been asking if Taiwan is the next Ukraine. At a G7 meeting of national leaders in January, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida warned that Taiwan “could be the next Ukraine” if Chinese aggression is not checked. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if Russia is not defeated, then “today, it’s Ukraine, tomorrow it can be Taiwan.” China does not like this rhetoric. Its diplomats ask people to stop saying “Ukraine today, Taiwan tomorrow.” However, the rhetoric and stated ambition of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Taiwan shows strong parallels with