The Department of Health (DOH) said yesterday it is preparing to amend the Emergency Medical Service Act (緊急醫療救護法) to encourage volunteers to help save lives.
The amendments would make it mandatory for public facilities to be equipped with accessible Automated External Defibrillators (AED), including railway and subway stations, schools, airports, gyms, sports centers, department stores and other public spaces, Bureau of Medical Affairs Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said.
The amendments will also exempt trained and untrained rescuers from civil liability in cases of death or injuries sustained by the victim during cardiac resuscitation. The DOH hopes to have the amendments passed by the end of this year.
Shih said the government’s stance on the legal implications of non-professionals attempting resuscitation in emergencies was similar to that of the US.
The US’ “Good Samaritan laws” protects volunteers from being sued in the event that their attempts to help a victim in distress result in unintentional death or injury, he said.
Amending the act would encourage bystanders to help and it would be best if they have access to AEDs because this would help to increase the survival rate of cardiac arrest victims, he said.
The department yesterday issued certification to 36 organizations that have bought or rented AEDs for their facilities and had trained more than 70 percent of their staff in emergency rescue procedures, including BEING Sport, Taipei International Airport (Songshan), TransAsia Airways, the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China, the National Health Research Institute, the Breeze Center in Taipei and Yu Da University.
Hospital emergency rooms nationwide admit 200,000 cardiac arrest patients a year and the survival rate can increase from 1 percent to 5 percent if they receive AED treatment in ambulances, the health department said
However, it has been found in Japan that the survival rate can rise to 7 percent if public access defibrillation is employed, it said.
The AED is designed for use by non-professionals. It can detect heart rhythms and automatically administer electric shocks to restore normal heartbeat in cases of heart failure.
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
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
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