The Department of Health (DOH) came under fire yesterday for appointing the head of the Hospital Administration Commission, who is currently facing bribery charges, to a seat on the National Health Insurance (NHI) Medical Expenditure Negotiation Committee last month.
The Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation said it was unconscionable for the department to allow Hwang Kun-chang (黃焜璋) to serve on a committee that is in charge of allocating NT$500 billion (US$17.2 billion) in National Health Insurance resources while simultaneously serving as the head of DOH-run hospitals.
Hwang was effectively both on the receiving and distributing end of the system, a blatant violation of the principle of government officials avoiding conflicts of interest, the foundation said.
“The DOH has disappointed the public by failing to keep watch on the effective and fair use of NHI resources on behalf of the people,” said Chu Hsieh-kuang(朱顯光), the foundation’s chief of research and development.
In addition to urging officials to avoid conflicts of interests, the foundation called for more transparency in the process of nominating candidates to serve on the committee, which makes important decisions about NHI expenditures.
Chu said DOH-administered hospitals serve a wide range of functions that are difficult to manage.
Not only are they responsible for public health and disease control, they are also entrusted with keeping their own finances balanced, which has, unfortunately, led some administrators to irregular financial dealings with medical suppliers to find a way out, Chu said.
Last month, Hwang, Keelung Hospital superintendent Lee Yuan-fang (李源芳), Taipei Hospital deputy superintendent Wang Chung-lang (王炯琅) and six others were charged with conspiring with medical equipment suppliers in several major procurement bids.
The investigators said that Hwang and top officials at the three hospitals were suspected of having “irregular” financial dealings with the three companies and of using shady methods to award supply contracts between 2009 and early this year.
They said the hospitals might have favored the three companies that won three projects under investigation — a NT$400 million physical examination center at Taoyuan Hospital, NT$7 million in automatic biochemical examination equipment purchased by Taipei Hospital and NT$230 million in cardiovascular examination equipment purchased by Keelung Hospital.
In response, Department of Health Deputy Minister Chiang Hung-che (江宏哲) said the department would invite experts to discuss how to help DOH-run hospitals balance the twin tasks of promoting public health policies while keeping hospital finances in the black.
The department has also said it would soon adopt measures to include third-party supervision during the procurement process.
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:
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