The Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) has uncovered more than 500 cases of forged medical documents used to hire foreign household caregivers in the past three months, a CLA official said yesterday.
Under the current regulations, only the families of patients with a level of 20 or lower on Barthel's score -- which measures a person's level of dependence -- are permitted to hire foreign caregivers.
A Barthel's level of 20 or lower means a physically disabled or mentally ill patient is "totally dependent," while a level of 40 or below on the score means the patient is "heavily dependent."
While many families of patients are in urgent need of foreign caregivers, the CLA's requirements of Barthel's level are widely regarded as too stringent.
The government set the level in order to control the growing number of foreign caregivers.
As hiring foreign caregivers costs much less than hiring local ones, they are regarded as one cause of Taiwan's climbing unemployment rate.
"Since October last year, the CLA has been informed that some gangs sold forged Barthel's scores to families who wanted foreign caregivers," said Liao Wei-ren (廖為仁), director of CLA's Division of Foreign Worker Affairs.
Liao said the gangs sold the false Barthel's scores for NT$20,000 each.
According to Liao, the CLA usually deals with such cases in two ways.
"When such cases are reported to us, the first thing we do is ask local labor bureaus to look into the case," Liao said
He said that this would determine whether any foreign caregiving agencies were involved in the buying and selling of the forged documents.
"Those who hire foreign caregivers also need to take responsibility because they bought the forged Barthel's scores," Liao said.
Agencies could be fined from NT$300,000 up to NT$1.5 million if found guilty, said Liao.
"Secondly, we will ask investigators to look into the gangs' criminal liability of forging documents," Liao said.
According to Liao, the Taipei Municipal Police Department has dealt with a number of such cases.
Liao said that most of the forged documents were found in central Taiwan.
Although the CLA has only found around 500 false papers, investigators revealed the gangs have sold out at least 3,000 forged Barthel's scores, making profits of more than NT$100 million.
Investigators have been tracking 10 gangs involved in the illegal trade across the island.
According to investigators, the gangsters even include employees in renowned pharmaceutical companies in central Taiwan.
"We suspect some doctors are also involved in forging the Barthel's scores," an investigator said.
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