Both the Cabinet and the Taipei City Government yesterday said that they will punish medical personnel and institutions who do not cooperate with quarantine orders aimed at limiting the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
During a meeting of the Executive Yuan yesterday morning, two doctors and two hospitals were singled out for punishment -- Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital surgeons Dr. Chou Ching-kai (
Both Chou and Lee failed to report to Hoping Hospital after a compulsory 14-day quarantine for all its staff was announced last Thursday.
Lee did not return to the hospital until Tuesday. He allegedly continued working at his private clinic in Taipei after the quarantine order was issued.
Chou did not return to the hospital until shortly after 7pm yesterday, after the Taipei City Police Department put him on a "wanted list" and sent officers out to look for him. Chou's wife -- who must also be quarantined -- remains at large.
Officials say Chou and Lee violated the Doctor's Law (醫師法), the Medical Treatment Law (醫療法) and the Communicable Disease Prevention Law (傳染病防治法). The Taipei City Government said Lee could be fined NT$60,000, while Chou could be fined up to NT$240,000 and could face charges.
The Department of Health (DOH) has accused Jen Chi Hospital of misreporting two cases of suspected SARS and transferring the patients to other hospitals.
DOH officials said that the Chiayi Christian Hospital negligently released two suspected SARS patients and asked them to go, by themselves, to National Taiwan University Hospital for further treatment.
It was later determined that neither person had SARS.
Speaking on behalf of Premier Yu Shyi-kun, Cabinet spokesman Lin Chia-lung (
"They face the potential of having their licenses suspended, being fined or maybe jail time," Lin said.
The Taipei City Government announced late last night that Chou will be disciplined and fired.
Meanwhile, the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office said that it has already begun an investigation, but the cases of doctors evading quarantine are different from criminal cases.
"Medical personnel who violate medical-related laws do not have to be facing any criminal charges before prosecutors can indict them." said Chen Hung-ta (陳宏達), spokesman for the Taipei District Prosecutors' Office.
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