President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday promised to protect the rights of medical workers and improve their working conditions, as the government prepares to launch a second--generation health insurance program next year.
“Taiwan was selected by CNN as having one of the world’s best health insurance programs along with Switzerland and the UK. However, doctors and other medical workers in Taiwan suffer from lower pay and more overtime when compared to medical workers in the US and Europe and we must address the issue,” Ma said, while attending a forum organized by the Formosa Medical Association in Greater Kaohsiung.
The Department of Health has established a task force to improve the working and employment conditions of medical workers — including their work hours, compensation for work-related injuries and insurance protection — and would include working conditions in future hospital reviews, Ma said.
Photo: Lin Meng-ting, Taipei Times
“The government is also promoting a compensation mechanism to reduce medical lawsuits and seeking to limit the personal responsibility of doctors in medical disputes,” he added.
The president’s pledge to improve employment conditions for doctors and other medical workers came after a doctor from National Taiwan University Hospital decided to leave and become a plastic surgeon in the private sector, sparking concern that others might choose to follow suit because of their heavy workload.
Work conditions for medical personnel drew attention last month after a nurse named Meggie Lin uploaded an article on the lack of manpower at hospitals and the excessive workload for nurses on CNN’s iReport Web site.
Although 230,000 people hold nursing licenses in Taiwan, only about 40 percent of them are in the workforce, according to statistics compiled by health officials.
Ma said the shortage of nurses and medical personnel at hospitals was a problem many countries faced and the Department of Health has proposed various strategies to address the issue.
Under the department’s proposals, the administrative workload on nurses would be greatly reduced as a result of the reforms, while an extra NT$2 billion (US$68.1 million) would be allocated to recruit more nurses to alleviate the shortage, he 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:
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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