Taipei Prison yesterday arranged for former President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to undergo a follow-up medical exam and said that the results showed that Chen was in good health and that he only needs medical treatment in the prison, as opposed to medical parole.
Chen underwent a follow-up at Taoyuan General Hospital yesterday morning.
A group of Chen’s supporters gathered at the hospital lobby, shouting: “A-bian is innocent” when he arrived.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Hospital deputy superintendent Hsu Jin-chyr (徐錦池) led doctors from the departments of gastroenterology, cardiology, general chest medicine and urology to examine Chen, Taipei Prison deputy warden Su Ching-chun (蘇清俊) said, adding that Chen underwent an electrocardiogram, CT scan, MRI scan, echocardiogram, chest X-ray, endoscopic sedation and other checkups.
Hsu reported the results to Chen after the exams were completed, Su said. Chen’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and Chen Shui-bian’s doctor, Kuo Chang-feng (郭長豐), who oversaw the checkup, were also briefed, he added.
Su quoted Hsu as saying that the former president’s heart, chest and lung functions were normal. His gastroesophageal reflux disease has improved, cholesterol reading dropped and he suffers only a slight inflammation of his urology system, Hsu was quoted as saying.
Doctors have ordered that Chen Shui-bian to take medicine and have follow-ups about every four to eight weeks to cure the urology problem, Su said, adding that his physical condition is good and that he does not qualify for medical parole.
Chen Shui-bian, serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison term on corruption charges, was transported from Taipei Prison to the hospital at about 6am and was returned to the prison at 10:30am.
Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Hsu Chun-hsin (許忠信), who accompanied Chen Shui-bian to the hospital, however, said the former president’s physical and mental conditions were very feeble. Hsu expressed concern over Chen Shui-bian’s physical and mental health should he remain imprisoned.
Political parties and various rights groups in Taiwan and the US have called on the government to release the former president on humanitarian grounds, saying that his conditions in prison are contributing to his deteriorating health.
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