Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday dismissed questions about his personal finances made by former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅) and defended the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) against accusations that it failed to declare one of its bank accounts.
“[KMT Legislator] Lo Shu-lei (羅淑蕾) had made similar accusations, but failed, and now it is Chiu who is doing the same thing,” Ko said, when asked by reporters for comment. “He [Chiu] is not someone who is trusted by the public, so I would rather not respond to [his allegations] and leave it to the prosecutors to investigate.”
Chiu has questioned Ko’s relationship with manufacturers of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) — an emergency medical treatment technique — when he served as head of the hospital’s surgical intensive care unit (SICU).
Chiu said that Ko often received large sums of money — up to tens of thousands of NT dollars — that are directly wired into a private account shared by the SICU team from ECMO manufacturers.
“I have publicized all related public and private accounts, and I am willing to cooperate in any investigation,” Ko said, calling on the rival camp to stop making baseless accusations.
Asked about the National Audit Office’s statement that the hospital had failed to declare its “402” public account as required by law, Ko said he was not clear about the details since he was not in charge of the account, but added that he was confident about the hospital’s auditing system.
“The NTUH is one of the nation’s top hospitals and has been around for about 100 years. It has very strict procedures when it comes to money matters; each expenditure has to be approved by 11 supervisors,” Ko said.
“I don’t think the NTUH’s procurement procedures should be questioned,” he added.
Saying there may still be room for improvement, Ko urged his rival not to destroy the entire medical industry for an election.
“In 2012, [the KMT] also made allegations about [Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson] Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) relationship with the biomedical industry, which later proved to be false, but they did much harm to the industry,” he said. “I hope that tragedy will not be repeated.”
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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