I was happy to see that the legislature reviewed and passed a draft amendment to Article 13 of the Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act (兒童及少年福利與權益保障法).
The amendment requires the Ministry of Health and Welfare to review the cause of death of children who die before the age of six and regularly announce the results. This is the first step toward conducting child death reviews (CDR), an effective method to prevent child and youth deaths.
Child death reviews collect information on the deceased, law enforcement personnel, the courts, child protective services and caretakers. Then, through a systematic discussion across organizations and fields of expertise, it identifies causes of child death that can be addressed and corrected.
The discussion might uncover matters such as child abuse, while a corrective measure might seek to improve a piece of equipment, an environment, a medical treatment or a public safety step. The process should be followed by an administrative action aimed at improving the situation and preventing similar tragedies from occurring.
A 1990 study into the causes of child deaths in North America found that deaths caused by child abuse were far more common than reported. The results prompted the US to introduce a CDR system in 1993. The importance of this system has been verified in several countries.
Two years ago, Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital began to expand its child protective services. Since then, we have continuously highlighted the importance of introducing a CDR system.
Meanwhile, the hospital’s Child Protection Center has begun to review the hospital’s child emergency patients and conduct CDRs on child patients who suffer cardiopulmonary arrest prior to their arrival, collecting data, talking to family members and analyzing the causes of death.
The hospital last year published a CDR report on 152 children who suffered cardiopulmonary arrest prior to arriving at a single emergency room from 2005 to 2006. Among the cases, 55.3 percent were boys and 47.4 percent were less than one year old. The study found that 76.3 percent of child deaths occurred at home.
The three main causes of death before arrival were sudden infant death syndrome, unclear causes of death and trauma. The survival rate of children suffering cardiopulmonary arrest prior to their arrival at the emergency room was extremely low — 13.8 percent — as it is associated with poor neurological outcomes.
Studies have found that up to 35.5 percent of all child deaths are caused by trauma, child abuse, suffocation, drowning, hypoxia, fire or curtain cord strangulation. These deaths are preventable.
To effectively prevent such tragedies — and to expose deaths caused by abuse and other crimes — the government’s most urgent task is to recognize the importance of establishing a CDR system.
Lee Jung is director of Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Division of Pediatric General Medicine.
Translated by Perry Svensson
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US