The Department of Health’s Bureau of National Health Insurance (NHI) risks creating a medical financial “black hole” by spending billons of NT dollars each year funding medical projects with no evaluation and withdrawal mechanisms, civic groups said yesterday.
National Health Insurance Civic Surveillance Alliance spokesperson Eva Teng (滕西華) told a press conference that next year’s total budget for medical projects, which allocates a certain amount of money for each sector, was passed last week following negotiations at the NHI Medical Expenditure Negotiation Committee.
However, representatives from hospitals have demanded an extra NT$7 billion (US$233,450) in special funding for additional personnel costs to meet new standards for medical care institutions that will be enforced from next month, Teng said.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Shu-ying (黃淑英) said manpower allocation at hospitals was not just a problem of service quality, but also of safety.
The unbalanced manpower allocation of nurses, for example, leads to long-term problems of overwork and wage shortages, Huang said.
However, the new regulations only demand minimum quality standards based on existing hospital accreditation standards, Huang added.
So, unless they have been faking the statistics for the evaluations, hospitals will not need additional personnel costs if they passed accreditation evaluations in the past, Huang said.
“If the hospitals can’t even meet the lowest requirements, then they shouldn’t be approved in the evaluations,” Teng said, adding that “the hospitals are putting the cart in front of the horse saying that they can’t adapt to the requirements if they don’t get additional funding.”
Teng said the Consumers’ Foundation had announced that doctors in specific disciplines did not receive the NT$1.5 billion in funding for diagnosis fees, while nurses did not get a three-year funding of NT$2.7 billion to improve their working conditions.
Moreover, the alliance said billions of NT dollars were spent on several project plans and trial projects, all in addition to the total budget.
Last year, nearly NT$16.5 billion was spent on 27 projects, Teng said, adding that many of those continued every year without a single evaluation of their effectiveness being carried out.
The alliance said NT$1.435 billion was spent last year on chronic hepatitis B and hepatitis C treatment projects, with budgets that rose to NT$2.8 billion this year and could reach NT$3.5 billion next year. A family physician integrated care system project has been running for seven years at a total cost of NT$6.5 billion.
The alliance urged the Department of Health to strictly evaluate budget negotiations to ensure reasonable resources allocation and avoid financial black holes that risk wasting public funds.
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