Two years ago, Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital surgeon Chou Ching-kai (
Fearing infection, Chou left the hospital just before the quarantine began and remained at home, defying orders from the Taipei City Government to return.
Last month, the Taipei High Court announced that Chou's refusal to return to the hospital in the midst of the outbreak did not violate the Doctor's Law (
PHOTO: CHENG HSUEH-YUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
While expressing gratitude for the verdict, Chou, along with family members of people who died from the SARS virus and human-rights activists yesterday urged the Taipei City Government to cancel all reprimands levied on hospital staff and called on the public to pay attention to human rights issues that have emerged as a result of the SARS outbreak -- even though the threat from the virus has long subsided.
"I chose to voluntarily quarantine myself at home during the SARS outbreak, which was an appropriate move in preventing the spread of the virus," said Chou, dean of the hospital's general surgery department. "However, the Taipei City Government called me a `runaway doctor' and used me as a scapegoat to cover their mistakes, which caused more casualties through the use of the quarantine."
As a result of the verdict, Chou yesterday said he planned to file a civil suit against Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Amid the 2003 SARS outbreak, 975 hospital staff members were ordered to remain at the hospital as part of a quarantine. Chou and other three staff members failed to show up for the quarantine. The BOH then published their names and said they were "missing."
Later, the staff members were forced to return to the hospital. The city also filed lawsuits against them for alleged violations of the Communicable Disease Prevention Law (
During a press conference held by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights yesterday, Yen Chueh-an (
"First, Taipei City Government monopolized the situation. The decision to implement a quarantine -- which violated human rights -- only caused more casualties," Yen said. "Then, the BOH blamed the casualties on the doctors, and thus hurting their reputations."
The anti-SARS measures adopted by the authorities faced serious public criticism at the time, since the virus continued to spread despite the quarantine measures.
Hsu Ming-fei (徐銘馡), whose uncle died of SARS at the hospital, questioned the effectiveness of the quarantine and said that the city's bungling of containment measures caused needless deaths and illnesses and scarred their families.
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