Department of Health (DOH) Director-General Lee Ming-liang (
In his response, Lee vowed to disclose hospitals' financial records within three months, to protect the rights of underprivileged patients and to enhance the efficiency of medical services. Lee also promised to reduce the waste of medical resources -- through measures such as adjusting the cost of medicine -- and to provide an official channel -- a toll-free phone line -- for people to lodge complaints.
Lee made the announcement at a press conference and stressed that the department is willing to make necessary improvements to the nation's health-insurance program
According to the DOH, the five-point plan will be enforced within six months.
Chang Hung-jen (張鴻仁), CEO of the Bureau of National Health Insurance, said that hospitals or clinics that refuse to cooperate with the DOH plan may have their medical licenses revoked or see their government subsidies withheld.
Responding to criticism, the DOH director-general said that public opinion has been taken into account.
"We have taken the public's reaction and criticism [to the planned fee hike] seriously and have sincerely accepted the suggestions from various NGOs," Lee said. "However, the direction of the policy has already been set, the new payment scheme will be enforced on time."
Under the DOH's new scheme, which will go into effect on Sept. 1, NHI premiums will be raised from 4.25 percent to 4.75 percent of a person's monthly salary and outpatients can expect charges per visit for medical treatment of up to NT$710.
Since the DOH announced the fee hike last month in a bid to sustain the debt-ridden National Health Insurance program, more than 60 NGOs and labor unions have criticized the government for asking the public to bear the debt burden caused by the waste of medical resources.
Representatives from the Taiwan Health Reform Foundation (
However, as the DOH insists that the scheme will go ahead on schedule, critics will take to the streets in a union-organized demonstration scheduled for Tuesday.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching