Tens of thousands of netizens yesterday signed an online petition initiated by a group of doctors calling for the resignation of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) as chairman of the Taiwan Medical Association, saying that the lawmaker’s accusations against National Taiwan University Hospital’s (NTUH) organ transplant procedures insulted the medical industry as a whole.
The initiators of the petition included NTUH’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology attending physician Shih Jin-chung (施景中), Kaohsiung Municipal United Hospital’s Division of Urology attending physician Tsai Hsiu-nan (蔡秀男), Changhua Christian Hospital pediatrician Chien Jien-wen (錢建文) and Taipei Municipal Gan-Dau Hospital’s Division of Family Medicine doctor Fang Jui-wen (方瑞雯).
It was launched at 10pm on Thursday, hours after Su and another KMT physician-turned-legislator, Liao Kuo-tung (廖國棟), accused the NTUH — the nation’s leading hospital — of having given high doses of phentolamine and heparin to dozens of trauma patients in the past 15 years to cause them to die, for the sole purpose of making them eligible as organ donors and deceiving district prosecutors into issuing their death certificates.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The pair insinuated that the hospital used drugs to cause cardiac arrest in the patients before they were declared brain dead, and then connected them to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine to improve the viability of their organs.
The accusations are perceived as an attempt to tarnish the integrity of physician-turned-independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), who once served as convener of the hospital’s organ procurement team and was the director of its emergency care team for a time from 2008.
“Su’s move to spread unverified rumors degrading to the medical community in the legislature suggests that he is no longer fit to serve as chairman of the Taiwan Medical Association. We request that Su focus on his job as a lawmaker and immediately resign his chairmanship,” the petition said.
It said that Su’s tarnishing of the medical profession’s reputation and his unfounded accusations have unnerved the public, saddened the families of organ donors and impeded the nation’s future developments in organ procurement and transplantation.
“We urge Su to hand over the chairmanship and apologize for launching a smear campaign against the nation’s organ donation system,” the petition said.
At press time last night, the petition — at www.facebook.com/events/744223215651746 — had more than 20,000 signatures.
Other doctors also took to Facebook to vent their discontent at the lawmakers’ accusations.
Wan Fang Hospital’s Surgery Department deputy director Li Shao-jung (李紹榕) said that when a person’s heart suddenly stops beating, blood and oxygen cannot be transported to the body’s vital organs.
“In this condition, phentolamine is injected to cause blood vessels to expand and thus increase blood flow to tissue and organs, while heparin is administered to prevent blood clots... These drugs are definitely not the demons the two physician-turned-legislators claim them to be,” Lee said.
Lee said the fact that someone who represents the Taiwan Medical Association would believe unsubstantiated rumors and that the nation’s most reputable hospital would tolerate “purposeful murder of its patients” is a disgrace to the medical community as a whole.
Min Sheng General Hospital Division of Neurosurgery director Antonio Carlos Ko (柯紹華) said that as a neurosurgeon and a physician accredited to determine brain death, he found Su’s remarks utterly intolerable.
Antonio Carlos Ko called Su “a self-proclaimed doctor hiding behind the immunity bestowed upon him by his job as a legislator and questioning the endeavors made by other medical professionals in the field of organ donation.”
“He accused his fellow doctors of retrieving patients’ organs while they were still alive, and claimed that there have been cases in which brain-dead patients regained consciousness and returned to a normal life,” he said.
The cases Su mentioned were of people who were in a deep coma rather than brain dead, Antonio Carlos Ko said, adding that trained doctors are expected to know the difference.
“It is evident that Su has sought to distort facts and used his medical knowledge as leverage to launch political attacks,” Antonio Carlos Ko said.
In response, Su said in a statement issued later yesterday that while the timing of his accusations might seem inappropriate, the NTUH’s alleged wrongdoings would deal a heavier blow to the image of the medical industry if he had chosen to remain silent and cover for the hospital.
“There will be no medical advances without transparency. Was not a lack of transparency in the government’s handling of the recent food scares ... that forced the former minister of health and welfare [Chiu Wen-ta, (邱文達)] and the former director of the Food and Drug Administration [Yeh Ming-kung (葉明功)] to step down?” Su said.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS