Donations to provide medical care for the injured in Saturday last week’s water park dust explosion already exceed NT$500 million (US$16 million), and the New Taipei City Government has begun distributing subsidies to the families of victims, Mayor Eric Chu (朱立倫) said on Thursday.
The New Taipei City Government opened a bank account on Monday for donations to the blast victims.
Pledging that every penny of the donations will be used to help the fire victims, Chu said that the city government has decided to allocate a certain amount from the special fund to provide immediate subsidies to the families of the burn patients.
In response to requests from patient families for subsidies to help them sustain the long period of medical treatment for their loved ones, the city government has decided that families of patients staying in general wards for moderate burns will receive NT$100,000 each, and those under intensive care will receive NT$200,000 each.
To make good use of the donations for reconstructive surgeries and post-medical treatment care of the patients, the city government will convene a meeting with the participation of the victims’ families, lawyers and representatives from the Taiwan Society for Burn Injuries and Wound Healing, the Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation and medical institutions to discuss the details of the appropriation.
Chu said that in addition to making donations, some companies have contacted the city government over the past few days, promising to provide job opportunities to the injured after they have recovered.
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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