Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who was released on medical parole earlier this week, visited the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital yesterday afternoon for a medical examination.
He was accompanied by his son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and Chen Shun-sheng (陳順勝), vice superintendent of the hospital and a vice convener of his medical parole group.
The former president, who has spent six years in jail prior to his conditional release on Monday, did not say anything when he entered the hospital in a wheelchair.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Chen Shun-sheng said that they would examine the ailing former president’s excretory system and nervous system among others, after which he would undergo another round of respiratory therapy, psychiatric assessment and sleep apnea assessment.
Data collected from the medical examination is to be submitted to a court for review, Chen Shun-sheng said, adding that the former president was very cooperative and grateful for people’s help.
Speaking about his father’s condition at home, Chen Chih-chung said that whenever the former president woke up, he would instinctively look toward where two surveillance cameras were installed in his prison cell — a conditioned response to his imprisonment that has yet to recede.
Chen Shui-bian’s health has progressively deteriorated over the past 30 months, and a neural deficiency has affected his hands, with a previous analysis showing that he had frequent hand tremors, Chen Shun-sheng said.
By the end of the one-month parole, doctors will review Chen Shui-bian’s condition as measured against Taichung Prison’s Pei Teh Hospital’s assessment, to see if he shows any improvement, he added.
Greater Kaohsiung has assembled a 22-member medical team to look after Chen Shui-bian.
Kaohsiung Department of Health Director-General Ho Chi-kung (何啟功) said on Tuesday that Chen Shui-bian’s health would be looked after by 10 doctors from the Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and 12 from Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital.
The two hospitals’ superintendents — Chen Chao-long (陳肇隆) and Lai Wen-ter (賴文德) — serve as coconveners of the medical team, Ho said.
The doctors on the team include neurologists, chest experts, urologists, psychiatrists and rehabilitation specialists, Ho said.
The Agency of Corrections, which granted the month-long medical parole on doctors’ recommendation, has stressed that the ex-president’s release is temporary and he will be required to return to prison once his condition stabilizes.
Earlier this week, the Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) said that the conditions imposed on the former president’s medical parole are “totally outrageous.”
FAPA condemned the delay in releasing Chen Shui-bian and said that his parole conditions were “demeaning.”
The six years that he has been imprisoned have “severely blemished” the human rights record and status in the international community of the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), a statement issued by FAPA president Mark Kao (高龍榮) said.
“It is the ultimate proof that under Ma there has been a serious erosion of justice,” the statement said.
FAPA said the conditions of Chen Shui-bian’s parole provide evidence that Taiwan’s judicial system continues to be tainted by the political bias imposed by Ma.
“While we as Taiwanese Americans are happy that Chen Shui-bian has now finally been released on medical parole, we are angered and dismayed by the delaying tactics of the Ma administration,” the statement said.
Chen Shui-bian’s release was delayed by one bureaucratic hurdle after another, including one excuse that official documents were late in reaching Taichung Prison due to a traffic jam.
As a result, Chen Shui-bian spent Christmas and New Year’s Day in jail “instead of at home with his family,” FAPA said.
Kao accused the Ma administration of playing “political football” with Chen Shui-bian’s health and says he is angered and dismayed by the delaying tactics.
“It was an utterly contemptible display of bureaucratic incompetence and malicious vindictiveness,” he said.
FAPA added in its statement that many international observers, including former Harvard law professor Jerome Cohen, have identified multiple lapses in due process and other serious procedural flaws by the prosecution in Chen Shui-bian’s corruption trial, raising questions about whether the case was politically motivated.
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