When the superintendent of Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, Wu Kang-wen (吳康文), was relieved of duty yesterday, nobody was feeling particularly sorry for him.
Wu, rumored to have hidden the fact of the SARS outbreak within the hospital, was widely considered responsible for the chaos at the facility.
Two nurses from Hoping have already died due to SARS and another's life is in danger.
Wu said in an interview yesterday, "I owe apologies to the medical staff who have contracted SARS."
"I did not know there were SARS cases in the hospital in mid-April. It was probably because our doctors did not find out about them," he said.
"I accept with calm the authorities' decision to relieve me of duty. I will also reflect on the public's criticism of my performance during the past few weeks.
"Although I am not a superintendent anymore, I am still a doctor and I will still share my experience with others to help in the battle against SARS," Wu said.
Staff at the hospital complained to the local media about Wu's conduct as the quarantine neared its end.
According to Chinese-language media reports, hospital staff said Hoping had been taking in SARS patients since mid-April and the administration knew about it. Staff were asked not to reveal the information to the media, according to the reports.
A report in Next magazine said hospital administrators deceived their own staff by saying there were no SARS patients in the hospital, meaning those caring for SARS patients did not take the necessary measures to protect themselves.
Tang Ssu-hu (唐四虎), the husband of deceased Hoping head nurse Chen Ching-chiu (陳靜秋), said, "if Hoping is going to turn into a SARS center, most medical staff will refuse to work under Wu again.
"When Wu scolds his staff, he can be way out [of line]," Tang said.
Tang also hinted at Wu practicing favoritism within the hospital.
Professor Yeh Chin-chuan (
Yeh is writing a report on the crisis at the hospital.
"Wu will need to be investigated. There must have been faults in his management," Yeh said.
According to the report in Next, Wu had run away from the hospital claiming he had a fever.
"He was in contact with the physical therapist who had contracted SARS, so fever or not, he had to be quarantined for 10 days," Yeh said.
The contact, however, was possibly the result of Wu's actions. According to media reports, after the hospital was shut down, Wu decided to transfer the therapist from Complex B to his office in Complex A to help, despite a strict policy of no exchange of personnel between the two complexes.
Wu denied the allegation, saying he had done this prior to the start of the no-exchange policy.
Wu, 63, is a graduate of China Medical College and obtained his medical degree in Japan.
In 1987, Wu got his first superintendent post at Taipei Municipal Chung Hsiao Hospital (
Wu was the superintendent of Taipei Municipal Jen Ai Hospital (
When Ma Ying-jeou (
Also see story:
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater