The Ministry of Health and Welfare should strive to have its regulations and policies conform to the Patient Autonomy Act (病人自主權利法) passed last year to prevent retired people from teaching, civil service and military backgrounds from being kept on life support so their children can benefit from their 18 percent preferential interest rate on savings, the Control Yuan said yesterday.
The Control Yuan issued the remarks in a report by Control Yuan members Kao Feng-hsien (高鳳仙) and Chiang Chi-wen (江綺雯).
National Yang-Ming University Hospital doctor Chen Hsiu-tan (陳秀丹) told the legislature in November that a retired dean had been kept on life support and subjected to ineffective treatments for seven or eight years, the report said.
The man’s children refused to remove life support systems because of the dean’s pension and the 18 percent preferential interest rate that applies to teachers, civil service personnel and military retirees, Chen said in the report.
“Despite the legislature passing the act last year, which allowed patients to decide beforehand whether to be kept on life support, doctors who act according to a patient’s decision to terminate life support or to forgo medical treatment are still punished according to the Hospice Palliative Care Act (安寧緩和醫療條例),” the report said.
However, if doctors or medical establishments ignore the patient’s wishes, they are not subject to any legal consequences, the report said.
This encourages medical professionals to act against the patient’s wishes and is a grave affront to the spirit of the Patient Autonomy Act, it added.
The ministry must take heed of the gravity of the situation and pass measures to support the Patient Autonomy Act and allow patients’ decisions on whether to accept extraordinary medical aid to be respected, the report said.
In addition, although the ministry has implemented a variety of hospice care measures and allowed terminally ill patients to undergo treatment at home, few have applied for such care, it said.
The ministry should step up promotion of hospice care at home or within a hospice community to patients or their representatives, the report said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique