Former city health chief speaks out

Former director of the Taipei City Health Bureau, Chiu Shu-ti, has her temperature taken before entering the Control Yuan building yesterday to clarify her role in the closure of Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital. PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES

The former director of the Taipei City Health Bureau said she resigned in response to the office's insufficient handling of the SARS epidemic that had led the city to be most seriously affected by the pneumonia-like disease.

"My colleagues and I already made our best effort to fight the spread of epidemic," said Chiu Shu-ti (邱淑媞) after a three-hour meeting with a group of Control Yuan members.

In response to a reporter's question whether the city authorities should face a charge of administrative negligence, Chiu said, "I have offered my resignation already."

The investigation committee looking into the government and the city's handling of the SARS outbreak comprises four Control Yuan members -- Chao Chang-ping (趙昌平), Chang Te-ming (張德銘), Liao Jiann-nan (廖健男) and Lee Shen-yi (李伸一).

Their inquest is focusing on two issues -- the health bureau's implementation of reporting the infection to the Department of Health and a possible delay in conveying the department's warning about the epidemic to the city's hospitals.

The bureau has taken a lot of criticism over its management of the SARS epidemic. A bungled closure of a municipal hospital brought out more SARS transmissions in Huachang Public Housing Complex and Gandau Hospital, said Chao Chang-ping, convener of the investigation committee.

On April 24, Vice Premier Lin Hsin-yi (林信義), vice commander of the Cabinet's SARS task force, declared a shut down of the Hoping Hospital in order to contain hospital infections. The decision was made two hours after a meeting between Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the hospital's fired superintendent Wu Kan-wen (吳康文).

"The former director told us that she needs further confirmation whether Wu had been informed about the closure and if the superintendent analyzed the hospital's situation regarding a shut down while meeting with Mayor Ma," Chao told a news conference.

Chao said that Chiu alerted to hospital heads to the epidemic.

"Chiu was confident that the hospital administrations would take precautions for the outbreak after her warning and the city hospital heads were accountable for a failure to curb the transmission within their hospitals."

Chang's colleague, Lee Shen-yi, said the city government should face punishment for failing to contain the disease, failing to determine whether illnesses was a result of concealment, a delayed infection report or an erroneous diagnosis.

"Besides hesitating to report the hospital laundry worker's infection and heedless of the deceased Hoping Hospital nursing head's contraction, the authorities inadequately carried out a quarantine surveillance, indicating that the administration was late to notify residents who needed to undergo the compulsory quarantine immediately," Lee said.

The city authorities' incompetence in determining the source of infection when hospital infections occurred also requires a review, he said.

The committee members said Chiu promised to address most of questions later in a written report.

The investigation committee cancelled a request to former health department director general Twu Shiin-jer (涂醒哲) yesterday afternoon because Twu was abroad for a meeting related to SARS.