The Taipei City Government will install 109 automated external defibrillators (AEDs) at Taipei MRT stations on April 1 as part of its efforts to enhance emergency medical services in public areas.
The installation of the AEDs is in accordance with an amendment to the Emergency Medical Service Act (緊急醫療救護法), which demands that easy access to vital emergency treatment to decrease non-traumatic sudden deaths should be available in public venues.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said the city government aims to install a total of 1,000 AEDs at public venues — including schools, district offices and night markets — within three years.
“The Department of Health has not announced a list of public venues that should carry AEDs. However, Taipei wants to lead in this effort and install them first at MRT stations,” Hau said.
According to health officials, hospitals receive on average 20,000 non-traumatic patients with irregular heartbeats each year.
The city government also invited well-known saxophone player Wang Chi-hsuan to promote the installation of AEDs in public venues.
Wang, 71, fainted on stage during a performance in December last year at Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall, and regained consciousness after someone in the audience performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and used an AED.
“I wouldn’t be alive if not for CPR and the AED, and so I think installing AEDs in public venues is crucial. More lives could be saved by having this equipment,” he said.
Hau said the AEDs are equipped with clear instructions and are easy to use even for people without medical training.
The device is used to restart a heart that is not beating, or is beating with an irregular rhythm.
Taipei City’s Department of Health said the city government also offers emergency medical care training at 12 district offices to teach life-saving skills, including CPR and using the AED.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift