Independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday presented his health policy platforms, saying, if elected, that he would turn municipal hospitals into community-oriented hospitals to reduce budgets and allow people to have better medical services.
While President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), when he served as mayor of Taipei, merged resources to make the city’s several public hospitals into a large medical center with many branches, Ko said that he would seek to overturn that policy if elected mayor.
“The government tells people to go to local clinics for minor illnesses and go to medical centers only when seriously ill to save resources,” Ko told a news conference yesterday. “However, I think the public should have more than just the two options.”
Ko said that since small clinics usually lack sufficient resources, they often have to refer patients to medical centers, so a policy that is intended to cut the waste of medical resources might just worsen the situation, not to mention that medical center visits cost more.
“My idea is that if we turn the city’s municipal hospitals into community hospitals, it would help save medical resources and allow people to have medical facilities close to home,” Ko said.
In addition, Ko also said that he supports including Chinese students in Taiwan in the National Health Insurance (NHI) plan, but they should pay a higher premium than locals.
“There is no reason for the NHI to exclude any human being [living in Taiwan]; the right to medical services is a universal and fundamental right, so as a doctor, I would say that they should be covered,” Ko said. “However, I think it does not make sense if they [Chinese students] pay the same premium as locals, because they do not pay taxes in Taiwan.”
“We should certainly talk about how much they should pay for their premiums,” he added.
Asked if he believes that China is intervening in the upcoming Nov. 29 election, Ko said that he does not think so.
“Do you think [Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] would throw his support behind Lien? Anticorruption is one of his core values and the Liens are against his core values,” Ko said. “So, I do not think Xi would necessarily support Lien.”
Lien’s campaign spokesperson Yu Shu-hui (游淑惠) dismissed Ko’s accusations.
“For four generations, the Liens have been loyal citizens of the Republic of China. Sean Lien’s great-grandfather Lieng Heng [連橫] was a renowned historian and both Sean Lien’s grandfather Lien Chen-tung [連震東] and father Lien Chan [連戰] have been law-abiding public servants,” Yu said, adding that the Liens earned a fortune because Sean Lien’s grandmother was a good investor.
“Ko would be the first target of anticorruption actions, since he has failed to clearly explain questions surrounding his personal accounts and the National Taiwan University Hospital accounts related to him,” Yu said.
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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