In response to a controversy surrounding charter flights evacuating Taiwanese from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of a COVID-19 outbreak, Taiwanese medical personnel on Feb. 7 launched an online petition calling on the government to stick to the bottom line of disease prevention.
The petition garnered the signatures of more than 110,000 healthcare professionals in just 24 hours.
Two days later, Taiwan Counter Contagious Diseases Society president Wang Jen-hsien (王任賢), whose name also appears on the list of physicians on the Web site of Beijing Jingdu Children’s Hospital, answered reporters’ questions on TV and published an opinion piece in the Chinese-language China Times in which he spouted nonsense, and blasted Taiwanese medical staff who have been doing their best to save lives and solve the nation’s urgent needs.
Wang’s criticism has aroused public fury and elicited a strong backlash throughout Taiwan. To set the record straight and ensure a correct understanding of the facts, a few issues need to be clarified.
In the opinion piece, Wang accused Li Wenliang (李文亮), a whistle-blowing Chinese physician who died due to the virus in Wuhan on Feb. 7, of contravening Chinese law by sounding the alarm about the disease outbreak to his friends through Chinese messaging app WeChat on Dec. 30 last year.
“Disclosing an epidemic at one’s discretion before the outbreak is officially announced by the government is, of course, against the law,” Wang wrote.
Absurdly, Wang’s view essentially chimes in with the views of China’s authoritarian government, and shows a crude understanding of the situation and a lack of legal common sense.
Before the outbreak, Li posted a message about the disease in a closed WeChat group chat for physicians inside the hospital only to remind his colleagues to be careful. He did not publicly spread the information, nor were the recipients members of the general public.
Therefore, Li did not breach medical ethics or the principle of privacy protection, nor did he contravene relevant laws and regulations.
Wang also criticized Taiwan’s medical sector, calling it a “rotten strawberry” that cannot stand pressure and saying that “Taiwan is now fighting a quarantine battle, but its medical staff have gotten cold feet even before the real disease-prevention battle begins. What makes them different from a rotten strawberry that is soft and mushy even when pressure is not exerted on it? While China consolidates the whole nation’s efforts to support Wuhan, Taiwan’s medical sector runs as soon as a little pressure escapes the pressure cooker. They are causing Taiwan to lose face in front of the whole world.”
Wang is wrong in making these accusations. In fact, Taiwan’s medical sector took preventive action late last month and the nation’s healthcare professionals are certainly not of the kind to “run away.”
Wang’s stance also begs the question as to whether he is helping Taiwan or Beijing to fight the disease.
Wang, who apparently cares so much about China, only proved his own ignorance of the real situation by making such irresponsible remarks.
Wang made another mistake when he criticized the petition, which calls on the government not to receive patients from Wuhan without imposing any restrictions.
Taiwan’s medical professionals are fully justified in measuring their capacity and not going beyond it, so that they can safeguard the nation’s medical resources, protect the public and prevent the healthcare system from collapsing, which would affect patients who ought to be placed under proper care.
Disease prevention is a battle, and the top priority in this battle is to protect Taiwan’s 23 million people, and safeguard the nation’s medical and disease preventive resources. Taiwan cannot sacrifice its healthcare professionals by working them to the point of collapse.
Wang ended his article with: “All Taiwanese in Wuhan hold Republic of China citizenship and therefore have an absolute right to return home for medical treatment. The government has an absolute obligation to bring them home and any procedural flaws should be put aside based on the principle that a government is obliged to serve the people. Taiwan’s medical sector and the government should be cautious and prepare for what comes next.”
Wang, who was in charge of a contagious disease preventive network in central Taiwan when working for the Centers for Disease Control, should have remembered the standard quarantine procedure when sending charter flights to evacuate citizens.
Late last month, China’s Taiwan Affairs Office first turned down Taiwan’s proposal for repatriation flights, saying that Taiwanese businesspeople in Hubei Province were receiving proper care.
Later, after approving a flight, China interfered with the passenger list by excluding elderly people, disabled people, pregnant women, children and the ill, and they even placed a Taiwanese who had been confirmed to be infected with the virus on the first flight. Why did Wang remain silent on these issues?
China-based Taiwanese businesspeople are compatriots, and Taiwan’s medical personnel should do all they can to take care of them when they fall ill, regardless of political affiliation. There is no need for Wang to worry, and he should stop making irresponsible remarks and humiliating Taiwan’s healthcare professionals.
Tsai Hsiu-nan is a physician.
Translated by Chang Ho-ming.
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