As part of an effort to further computerize the medical records of Taiwanese citizens, the Bureau of National Health Insurance yesterday announced that each person's willingness to donate organs will be recorded on their integrated circuit (IC) health insurance card starting next month.
"Once all medical records are integrated, patients on the waiting list for organs stand a better chance of getting the desired organ transplant," said Sheen Mao-ting (沈茂庭), the deputy general manager of the bureau's department of medical affairs.
Currently, over 490,000 people in Taiwan who are willing to donate their organs once they die have signed organ donation cards distributed with the non-profit Organ Procurement Association. Like many others, Taiwan is a country where demands for organs far outweigh supply, and hospitals do not have organs available for people who need them. The association now serves as the nation's largest data bank for organ purchases. In response to the bureau's policy, the association said that they will need to acquire the consent of each of its signatories before submitting the data to the bureau and recording the information on their IC cards.
"Out of respect for each individual's opinion, we are now asking our potential donors to contact us and update their organ donation cards," the association's secretary-general Wu Ying-lai (吳英萊)said.
Although the bureau's computerization initiative will begin next month, the association said they could not make a prediction as to when the mammoth task of getting approval from each potential donor will be completed.
Since the beginning of the year, the bureau has issued 23 million IC cards, and plans to encapsulate a card-holder's personal data and medical records on the credit card-sized data chip.
The government's plan to register personal information on the cards in bulk has stirred controversy. Patients' rights groups, especially those who represent people with diseases such as HIV and psychiatric illnesses, denounced the act as a violation of a patient's right to privacy. Embattled by their criticism, the bureau has yet to record personal medical data on IC cards. The IC card initiative has also been criticized as a waste of money. The bureau came under fire for wasting NT$4.1 billion of the budget for the creation of the cards. Since IC cards do not presently contain anything more than basic personal information such as the number of doctors a patient has visited and its expiry date, IC cards are no more efficient than a traditional paper card.
In the case of organ donations, the IC card's legal clout is still in question. At present, people who have signed an organ donation card are all considered potential donors. Yet in practice, doctors are often required to seek the consent of the deceased's families to reconfirm availability of organs.
"To put the information on the IC card does not mean that the card has the final say on this highly personal issue," said Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元), director-general of the Bureau of Medical Affairs under the Department of Health.
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