Nearly half of the nation's nurses and caregivers are afraid of touching people with HIV, the disease that causes AIDS, according to survey results released yesterday.
The survey, conducted by the Garden of Mercy Foundation (GMF), an organization dedicated to caring for AIDS patients, investigated the attitudes of healthcare workers in Taipei, Changhua and Tainan to patients with AIDS.
"The survey showed that 49 percent of nurses hold an open attitude towards AIDS patients," said Lu Tsung-hsueh (
But 47 percent of respondents said it was difficult for them to care for AIDS patients, Lu said.
"The survey revealed that many of our nurses and caregivers still cannot accept AIDS patients," Lu said.
Lu said that nurses and caregivers in central and southern Taiwan were more likely to accept AIDS patients than their northern counterparts.
"According to the survey, the primary reason nurses and caregivers find it difficult to care for AIDS patients is that they lack knowledge of the mentality and needs of the patients," Lu said.
Nurses and caregivers said it was difficult to consult with AIDS patients, although some also feared becoming infected with HIV, according to the survey.
More than 90 percent of the interviewees regarded AIDS as a growing problem, while 80 percent believed care for AIDS patients was insufficient.
Irene Shih (
"Nurses need to ask themselves whether they are ready to care for AIDS patients," Shih said.
Shih added many AIDS patients dare not tell their families about their disease because they are afraid they will be driven out of their homes.
In March 2001, the GMF established the House of Mercy to take care of AIDS patients.
Foundation president Susan Chang (
"These patients are abandoned by their families and friends. They have even given up hope," she said.
Foundation CEO May Chyou (邱淑美) told reporters about an 82-year-old woman who was deserted by her four sons after they found out she had been infected with HIV.
"The old lady was infected with the disease through a blood transfusion during an operation. Her youngest [son] never stepped into her ward after learning his mother was infected with AIDS," Chyou said.
Chyou said that when the lady was sent to the House of Mercy, she would neither open her eyes nor talk. Her sons rarely visited her and when they did, they were unwilling to approach her, according to Chyou.
"The lady never knew she had AIDS. She only knew she was deserted," Chyou said.
Devastated by her sons' abandonment, the lady went on a hunger strike and died shortly afterwards, according to Chyou.
"Her sons only told us they felt very ashamed and afraid of their mother's disease," Chyou said.
However, Chang said when she hugged the old lady, the woman responded. "Love can open any-one's heart," Chang said.
The GMF called for the government to provide AIDS patients with special wards so that they may pass away peacefully.
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