The legislature yesterday passed an amendment to the Hospice Palliative Medical Care Act (安寧緩和醫療條例) empowering family members of terminally ill and comatose patients to allow doctors to extubate or not resuscitate a patient.
The amendment stipulates that spouses, children over the age of 20 or parents of those who are terminally ill and cannot express their wishes have the authority to sign a joint agreement to suspend intubation or refuse resuscitation.
However, the decision must be reviewed and approved by an ethics committee composed of medical personnel, ethics experts and legal professionals.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The new regulation would take effect after the president promulgates it.
Under current regulations, doctors are barred from extubating terminal patients at the request of family members.
However, family members have the power to decide whether a patient should be intubated before doctors attempt resuscitation.
The amendment has sparked public debate, with some questioning whether family members should have the authority to make a life-or-death decision on behalf of a patient.
The amendment also stipulates that people who have marked no resuscitation on their National Health Insurance (NHI) card should be seen as having given formal consent to doctors to refuse resuscitation.
Although the act allowed individuals to put this on their card since 2006, doctors have had doubts about whether this should be seen as equivalent to formal consent.
In other news, legislators also approved a bill to raise the penalties for people found guilty of game fixing.
The amendment to the Sports Lottery Issue Act (運動彩券發行條例) carries a jail sentence of between three and 10 years and a fine of between NT$20 million (US$683,900) and NT$50 million for those convicted of game fixing.
The amendment was proposed in the wake of another round of arrests and questioning of local professional baseball players and gangsters who were allegedly involved in game fixing earlier last year.
The Ministry of Justice also submitted an amendment, this one on the law governing penalties for pedophiles, saying rapists should receive a minimum sentence of five years in prison.
Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) said that amid calls by the public for tougher sentences against sex crimes offenders, the ministry had completed an amendment to the law that would be sent to the legislature for approval.
The current law stipulates rapists can be sentenced to three to 10 years in jail.
Under the amendment, a minimum five-year sentence would apply to those who rape children under the age of 12, regardless of whether the offense is believed to have been made against the victim’s will or not.
The amendment would also target people who use religion as an excuse to commit sexual offenses against their followers, with sentences of between three and 10 years in jail.
Under the current law, sexual assaults against children under the age of 14 can receive a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Under the amendment, sexual assault against people under the age of 18 would receive a minimum sentence of seven years in prison.
In separate news, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) proposed to restrict the proportion of Korean or Japanese drama aired on local TV.
Chen’s proposal sought to increase the proportion of locally made drama from 20 percent to 40 percent.
Asked for comment, DPP Legislator Yu Tien (余天), who was a singer before becoming a lawmaker, said he supported the bill, adding that it would help protect the livelihood of Taiwanese entertainers.
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