Hospitalized former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has suffered a nervous breakdown and should be removed from his current environment, which lacks the support mechanisms that patients with mental illnesses need to recover, a psychiatrist on Chen’s medical team said yesterday.
“The most ideal environment for Chen to make a full recovery would be his home, not the Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH), where he is currently staying to receive treatment … and definitely not Taipei Prison,” Mackay Memorial Hospital psychiatrist Chen Chiao-chicy (陳喬琪) told the Taipei Times.
It would be “quite difficult” for the former president, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption and being treated for various complications in the TVGH, to recover fully from his mental breakdown, the psychiatrist said.
“We can only hope to improve his condition by transferring him to his home to convalesce with his family. Sending him back to prison would worsen his mental illness and eventually kill him,” he said.
In an interview published by the Chinese-language China Times yesterday, Chen Chiao-chi recommended granting the former president medical parole, saying Chen Shui-bian had tried to kill himself at least three times and could keep trying if his health did not improve.
Chen Shui-bian is suffering from sleep apnea, brain damage, severe depression and paranoid delusions of persecution, among other things, the psychiatrist said.
Chen Chiao-chi said he suspected that the former president had also suffered a nervous breakdown in 2008 when he was handcuffed and detained not long after leaving office, and that his mental health had worsened as he underwent a series of trials.
“Chen [Shui-bian] told me that being handcuffed was the most humiliating experience of his life,” the China Times quoted Chen Chiao-Chi as saying.
Chen Chiao-chi has been visiting Chen Shui-bian weekly since September last year and said he was having a nervous breakdown when they first met in May last year.
Judging from his long-term observation, the former president was not capable of making political assessments, organizing a political party or escaping if he were to be granted parole, Chen Chiao-chi said.
“It seems to me that Taipei Prison officials did not realize the dire mental condition Chen Shui-bian was in when they talked about putting him back in his cell before the Lunar New Year holiday next month,” Chen Chiao-chi said.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has repeatedly ruled out releasing Chen Shui-bian on medical parole, but several pan-blue politicians, such as Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), and many pan-green politicians have called for a parole.
The TVGH yesterday said the claim that Chen Shui-bian had suffered a nervous breakdown was one person’s opinion, adding that the former president’s physical and mental condition was being monitored by doctors who had not reported any unusual emotional displays.
Additional reporting by staff writer
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
The National Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology yesterday showcased its locally developed variants of the Vision 60 robotic patrol dog, which it plans to deploy on the nation’s outlying territories in the South China Sea. The variants were produced under the Joint Lab project — created by the institute and domestic companies — and assembled with domestically produced motors, lenses and artificial intelligence (AI) systems alongside licensed tech from the US, Missile and Rocket Systems Research Division deputy director Jen Kuo-kang (任國光) told the media event at a military base in Taipei’s Dazhi (大直) area. Taiwan has built up its strengths
NOT IMMEDIATE: Taiwan has a chance to appeal the proposed 10 percent tariff before it starts, while other countries face a 12.5 percent tariff from the trade office Taiwan is among 60 economies determined by the US to have failed to impose or enforce a ban on the importation of goods produced with forced labor, according to a notice released on Tuesday by the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), which proposed imposing an additional 10 percent or more tariff on them. The USTR in a statement said that following an investigation, it had determined under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 that the failure of the 60 economies to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is
TIT-FOR-TAT: The US allegedly revoked the visa of a Chinese national working at Xinhua News Agency in the US in response to Beijing’s expulsion of Vivian Wang The Presidential Office yesterday condemned China for expelling a New York Times correspondent from Beijing following the newspaper’s interview with President William Lai (賴清德), saying the move highlighted Beijing’s suppression of press freedom and its threat to international news media. Taiwan has noted a series of recent incidents in which Beijing used similar tactics to “threaten and pressure international media outlets and journalists,” Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said in a statement. “This concerns not only press freedom and freedom of expression, but also the safety of journalists, and Taiwan and relevant partners are paying close attention to the situation,” she
RSS