Two Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers yesterday accused the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) of having used “unethical methods” to trick district prosecutors into issuing death certificates for potential organ donors, in an apparent bid to undermine the integrity of physician-turned-independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Ko once served as convener of the hospital’s organ procurement team and the director of its emergency care team since 2008.
During a question-and-answer session at a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, physician-turned-legislator Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟) said he had “heard” from two top medical professionals that the hospital had given high doses of phentolamine to dozens of accident victims who were potential organ donors in the past 15 years, with the doses causing such dramatic drops in blood pressure that the patients’ hearts stopped beating.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“The hospital’s doctors subsequently connected the patients to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation [ECMO] machine to improve the viability of their organs and inserted an occlusion balloon catheter through the left femoral artery to block blood from flowing toward the heart,” Liao said.
After a district attorney and coroner arrived, the doctors then turned down the ECMO machine so the heart would stop so that “a death certificate could be issued,” Liao said.
“Such practices were not only carried out in a legal ‘gray area,’ but were a major violation of medical ethics,” Liao said.
“They used every possible means to stop the patients’ hearts and keep their organs fresh. They murdered potential donors solely to be able to retrieve their organs and someone else’s life,” he said.
In his criticism, physician-turned lawmaker Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) cited an English-language paper, “Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support of donor abdominal organs in non-heart-beating donors,” published in the journal Clinical Transplantation in 2000, that lists Ko as the first author, hinting that Ko had also taken part in what Su called “an immoral practice.”
“Doctors are not God. It is not up to them to decide who lives or dies,” Su said, urging the Ministry of Health and Welfare to investigate the allegations.
Article 4 of the Regulation Governing the Transplantation and Allocation of Human Organs (人體器官移植分配及管理辦法) stipulates that an organ retrieval procedure can only be performed on individuals that have been declared clinically dead.
The hospital’s organ donation guidelines state that brain death can be used to determine death if the potential donor fits the criteria for being brain dead.
Otherwise, cardiac death should be used as the basis for declaring death, it states.
Vice Minister of Health and Welfare Hsu Ming-neng (許銘能) said the ministry would investigate whether the alleged procedures were carried out before or after the patients were declared brain dead.
“If it was the former scenario, then it did break the laws,” Hsu said.
Wang Tsung-hsi (王宗曦), director of the ministry’s Department of Medical Affairs, said connecting a patient who has been pronounced medically dead to an ECMO machine is often intended to allow blood flow to the body’s organs and does not pose any legal concerns.
The hospital declined to comment on the accusations, saying only that it would cooperate with the ministry’s investigation.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he