■ HEALTH
BNHI paid for Chinese care
The Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI) paid NT$220 million (US$6.96 million) in reimbursements to Taiwanese who received care at Chinese hospitals last year, an official said on Friday. BNHI statistics showed that last year it handled about 48,000 cases involving Taiwanese receiving emergency medical treatment abroad, issuing a total of NT$320 million in compensation. Among the cases, about 80 percent, or 38,000 cases, were in China, with reimbursement amounting to 70 percent of the total, said Tsai Shu-ling (蔡淑鈴), a BNHI division chief in charge of hospital affairs. Tsai said the number of reimbursement applications from China exceeded 40,000, but 10 percent of were rejected because the cases were not considered emergency diseases or injuries. According to BNHI regulations, reimbursement for overseas medical treatment follows payments for local medical centers, with the maximum compensation for outpatient visits at NT$1,540 per day, NT$2,516 for emergency treatment and NT$7,069 for inpatient treatment per day.
■ CINEMA
Phone film festival held
Taipei yesterday held the nation’s first festival for short films designed for cellphones, with about 200 shorts presented, the organizer of the event said. “With the emergence of 3G phones and their enhanced video functions, it’s a cooler choice for people to watch movies, TV series or TV commercials on mobile phones,” Taiwan’s semi-official Institute for Information Industry said in a press communique. The Phone Movie Festival was a collaboration between the institute and seven local colleges, the organizers said. Although France, Australia, China, Japan, Hong Kong and New York have organized cellphone film festivals for two or three years already, this marked a first in Taiwan. The festival opened last night at the Shin Kong Cineplex in Taipei City’s Ximending. It also features a 3D short film.
■ MUSIC
Lin Yu-chun signs with Sony
Sony Music has signed Lin Yu-chun (林育群), who became a Susan Boyle-like overnight Internet sensation after singing like Whitney Houston on a TV talent show. “I still can’t believe it’s true,” Lin, dubbed “Little Fatty” by local media, was quoted as saying in a statement posted on Sony Music Taiwan’s Web site. Sony signed the 24-year-old at a press conference in Shanghai last week and is set to release his first album featuring Mandarin and English songs in July, the statement said. Lin followed in the footsteps of the real Susan Boyle from Britain and other TV talent show stars such as Paul Potts and Kelly Clarkson by joining Sony Music. Formally a part-time shop worker, Lin shot to fame after his rendition of the song I Will Always Love You — a Dolly Parton song made famous by Whitney Houston — became a sensation on Youtube last month.
■ DIPLOMACY
Palau exchange approved
The Cabinet last week approved a plan proposed by Taiwan Indigenous Culture Park (TICP) director Calivat Gadu to work with the Belau National Museum — the national museum of Taiwan’s Pacific ally Palau — to enhance cultural exchanges. In the initial phase, three Aboriginal pottery artists from Taiwan will travel to Palau to lecture on the latest pottery-making techniques and marketing strategies, while Palau will send artists to the TICP to teach Taiwanese Aborigines about Austronesian culture in the Pacific region. In future, the TICP will seek to work with more Pacific countries, Calivat said.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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