The “God of Business,” whose enterprises stretched from plastics and petrochemicals to high technology and biomedical sciences, was also instrumental in reshaping the nation’s medical map.
Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), founder of Formosa Plastics Group (台塑集團) — the most financially successful business group in the country — died in New Jersey on Thursday at the age of 91.
Wang founded the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taipei in 1976 to provide healthcare for the middle-class and less privileged citizens, for whom there was no access to affordable good medical care prior to the 1970s.
PHOTO: CNA
The Chang Gung Memorial Hospital was Taiwan’s first general hospital for ordinary people and the first teaching hospital at which doctors would not expect “red envelopes” from the relatives of their patients.
In establishing Chang Gung hospital, Wang spared no funds — earned from his business operations — hiring top-notch medical professionals and management personnel from both home and abroad.
At the same time, he also established a medical university and a nursing college to train medical professionals.
In less than 30 years, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital — which now has branches in Linkou (林口), Kaohsiung County, Taipei County, Keelung City and Xiamen, China — has become the largest hospital in Taiwan in terms of its number of beds and doctors, and is considered the nation’s best medical institution in terms of business management.
Inspired by Chang Gung’s successful business management model, other privately owned hospitals have been established around the nation in the past decade, a development that has reshaped Taiwan’s medical map. In the 1970s, the ratio of public to private hospitals was eight to two, but that figure has since been reversed and is now two to eight.
As the biggest hospital chain, Chang Gung hospitals now have the largest number of National Health Insurance Program (NHIP) holders, commanding between 8 percent and 9 percent of NHIP expenditure, an average of around NT$450 billion (US$13.88 billion) a year.
The Chang Gung business model has inspired National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) — the nation’s top public teaching hospital — to change its management style.
Emulating Chang Gung, several years ago NTUH began to expand its operations and now has many branches scattered around the country.
In his bid to make Chang Gung a first-class medical institution, Wang installed the most advanced equipment and facilities at the hospitals. The facilities included an operating theater and ward exclusively for patients with congenital heart disease, an operating theater and ward exclusively for children with craniofacial defects and a clinic for the implant of electronic ears for children with acoustic nerve defects.
Wang, who was a victim of streptococcus pneumoniae, donated NT$500 million earlier this year so that people over the age of 75 could receive the streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine for free.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators