The Department of Health said yesterday it had formed a special panel to handle a tragic incident at a Taipei County hospital that resulted in the death of a newborn girl and the hospitalization of six other infants.
Tan Kai-yuan (
They were rushed to four hospitals better-equipped for emergency treatment after receiving first-aid at Pei Cheng, Tan said.
The baby girl, born to Lo Yueh-chan less than 24 hours earlier, died at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in Panchiao, while the other six newborns were stable after receiving treatment, Tan said.
The former deputy director of the department, Huang Fu-yuan (黃富源), now deputy head of Mackay Memorial Hospital and an experienced pediatrician, will head a special team of experts to handle the affair and probe the cause of the fatal mishap, Tan said.
Initial investigations show that a nurse at Pei Cheng Hospital mistakenly gave the babies Atracrium shots rather than hepatitis B vaccines.
"The muscle relaxants were reportedly stored in the same freezer as the hepatitis B vaccines and medical staff chose the wrong medication," Tan said, adding that further investigations will be conducted to determine who should be held responsible, including criminal, civil and administrative liability.
Tan said medical mishaps usually result from human error.
Pei Cheng Clinical Director Hsu Mu-chuan (徐木泉) admitted the mistake and expressed his regret.
"We deeply apologize to the babies and their families and we will take full responsibility for this unfortunate event," he said.
He added that the hospital had already given NT$100,000 to each of the families involved as "comfort money."
Hsu also confessed that a 21-year-old nurse surnamed Huang had failed to double check the medication before she administered it to the babies.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods