The Department of Health yesterday unveiled a proposal to make it compulsory for people with mental illnesses to receive treatment for their conditions at the community level.
If the proposal is implemented, Taiwan could become the first country in Asia to introduce the system.
The health department said it would first launch the program in one or two counties or cities on a trial basis next year.
Authorities will then evaluate the program and gather opinions from patients and family members before deciding whether to expand it, Bureau of Medical Affairs head Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said.
Shih said approximately 100,000 people nationwide have been issued certificates by health authorities identifying them as suffering from severe mental disorders. Of these, 9,000 are considered unstable.
MEDICATION
Community therapy would be mandatory for medicated patients who do not meet the criteria for compulsory hospitalization but are not taking their medication, Shih said.
Taiwanese Society of Psychiatry president Chen Cheng-chung (陳正宗) said persons with severe mental disorders must be screened by a committee before being forcibly hospitalized. Of the cases severe enough to reach that point, between 10 percent and 15 percent are not recommended for hospitalization.
LIVING AT HOME
Very often, however, families with loved ones suffering from severe mental disorders do not know how to care for them if they stay at home, Chen said. Some patients do not take medication prescribed by their doctors, causing their condition to worsen, he said.
Under the health department’s new proposal, patients could be required to report to a rehabilitation center once a day or to receive home visits from a case manager once a week to check on their condition and ensure they are taking their medication.
In cases of severe mental illness, family members and community leaders should contact health authorities.
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
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
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: