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Homeless people in surgery swindle

The Kaohsiung City police on Wednesday raided a suspected crime ring thought to have conducted insurance fraud by sending homeless people for major surgery to collect claims from private insurance companies.

While the police continued its investigation into the case yesterday, the Ministry of the Interior issued a letter to regional governments to advise them on ways to promote awareness of the legal rights of homeless people.

According to reports in the Chinese-language media, the six suspected ring leaders arrested on Wednesday have been recruiting homeless people for the past three years.

The homeless individuals were signed up for health insurance policies with private insurance companies and sent to hospital to undergo surgery.

The ring leaders apparently collected on the insurance claims, amounting to about NT$400,000 per case, while the homeless patient collected between NT$20,000 and NT$30,000 as reward.

Procedures performed on the homeless patients included uterus, appendix and hemorrhoid surgery.

The hospitals which performed the surgery are alleged to be private institutions facing financial difficulties. These hospitals apparently agreed to conduct the surgery as long as the procedure was not harmful to the patient.

According to a statement made by Liu Wang-chian (劉萬健), sus-pected by police of being one of the ring leaders, the total amount of money collected from five different private insurance companies amounted to about NT$50 million.

The police are still trying to track down a dozen other suspects in connection with the crime ring.

More than 100 homeless people are thought to have been involved.

In light of the incident, the ministry yesterday sent out a letter to 25 city and county governments, urging them to take care of the welfare of homeless individuals.

According to the Social Service and Rescue Law (社會救助法), each city or county government is responsible for establishing its own regulations on homeless individuals.

"The ministry does not demand that regional governments follow a set procedure when providing aid to the homeless. Rather, depending on the budget each regional government has set aside for such a program, it will determine what type of resources it can provide to the homeless," said Lee Lin-feng (李臨鳳) of the ministry's Department of Social Services.

According to the ministry, each regional government works on the principle that it should provide subsidies to social groups that work with the homeless, as well as providing hot meals, grooming and sanitary services to the homeless. In addition, each regional government is also responsible for promoting common legal knowledge to the homeless to help them protect their own rights.

As of the end of last year, the total of number of homeless people in the country recorded by authorities stood at 2,964, the majority of whom are concentrated in urban areas, such as Taipei City and Kaohsiung City.
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