CLA to crack down on fake medicals

More and more local employers are skirting restrictions on the hiring of foreign caretakers by obtaining false medical diagnoses, the Council of Labor Affairs (勞委會) said yesterday, as it announced the investigation of such cases as one of its most important tasks.

"We have discovered many employers seeking to hire foreign caregivers by using false medical claims. We appeal to hospitals, employers and brokers to stop this illegal practice."

"Investigating this trend will be one of our most important missions from now on," Liao Wei-jan (廖為仁), an official from the CLA's Employment and Vocational Training Administration (EVTA), told reporters.

Under the regulations, patients who are diagnosed by hospitals as requiring nursing are entitled to apply to hire a foreign caregivers at one of the EVTA's local branches.

But the CLA believes that, after it introduced more rigorous standards for such applications three years ago, employers began illegally hiring foreign servants using permits for caregivers.

Starting in 1999, the CLA has uncovered 630 cases where foreign caregivers were hired after obtaining false medical document, CLA statistics show.

"We started to seriously examine the problem in 1999. We found that diagnoses from certain hospitals were used with unusual frequency," Liao said.

The CLA hired 115 investigators to check up on foreign caregivers across the country from November, 2000. They now check some 70,000 cases annually.

Under regulations issued July 27 last year, hospitals found to have issued a false diagnosis at any time from one year before their issuance is banned from issuing diagnoses for such hiring.

Approvals of fraudulent applications are to be cancelled immediately and employers and brokers who apply to hire foreign caregivers are subject to the full rigors of the law.

There are about 110,000 foreign caregivers in Taiwan. According to CLA estimates, some 20,000 to 30,000 caregivers have been hired with false documents.

Laio said that the CLA would in future review applications more carefully and its investigators would check up on both employers and caregivers more frequently.

Foreign caregivers have been allowed to work in Taiwan from the mid 1990s, when the cost of hiring local caregivers reached NT$60,000 per month.

But because of the high unemployment rate, last year's Economic Development Advisory Conference (EDAC) passed a resolution calling on the government to gradually reduce the current quota of 300,000 foreign workers.