Medical associations, civic groups and lawmakers yesterday voiced support for a “zero tolerance stance” against violence in medical facilities, after an emergency room (ER) doctor was assaulted by a patient’s son.
On May 6, actor Chen Ching-ta (陳清達) accompanied his mother to the emergency room of Changhua Christian Hospital.
Surveillance footage showed that a few minutes after arriving at the hospital, Chen punched the emergency room physician, resulting in a hematoma in the back of the the doctor’s head.
Jan Chun-chi (詹淳淇), a member of the Taiwan Medical Alliance for Labor Justice and Patient Safety’s (TMAL) Committee of Legal Study and Global Think Tank, said that Chen repeatedly shouted that his mother needed a ventilator, although the physician said she needed intubation — a procedure that requires a family member’s consent.
“While Chen Ching-ta accused the doctor of delaying treatment, his action alone interrupted the process by more than a minute,” Jan said.
“Chen’s assault against healthcare providers was not the first and might not be the last as violence in the ER is on the rise and the doctor-patient relationship deteriorating,” Jan said.
“Eighty percent of ER staff have encountered verbal and physical abuse and more than 30 percent have been physically attacked,” said Yen Zui-shen (顏瑞昇), a member of the Taiwan Society of Emergency Medicine.
TMAL chairman Chong Chee-fah (張志華) said that doctors nowadays carry audio recording devices or event data recorders to protect themselves.
Chang, Yen, Democratic Progressive Party legislators Liu Chien-kuo (劉建國) and Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) and Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) called for stationing police at hospitals and legal revisions, making infringements on medical safety an offense against public safety and therefore an indictable offense.
However, Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation chief executive officer Joanne Liu (劉淑瓊) expressed her concern over making violence at medical facilities a criminal offense without providing appropriate supporting measures.
“We are not pitting the ER against patients. We must keep in mind that hospital administrators and the government — the Department of Health and the Council of Labor Affairs — play a big role here,” Liu said.
“It is more crucial for hospitals to work on violence prevention measures such as personnel training and crisis management before any possible violent assault and a debriefing mechanism thereafter,” said Liu, adding that hospitals should also improve manpower allocation and strengthen physician-patient communication.
“More needs to be done on the government’s part as well. The Council of Labor Affairs in 2007 drafted regulations ordering hospitals to ensure workplace safety, but this draft was aborted in the end,” Liu said.
“It’s a shame that the policy on the issues of occupational safety has long been exceedingly influenced by the hospital administrators,” Liu added.
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
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
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