Taiwan is the best place to die in Asia, according to the 2015 Quality of Death Index compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), leaping from 14th to sixth place on the index comparing end-of-life care in 80 countries.
Topping the list is the UK, which has integrated palliative care into its National Health Service, the report showed.
Taiwan’s ranking makes it the highest Asian nation on the list.
The integration of community engagement for palliative care education and the encouragement of talking about death through the use of mainstream and social media has helped increase public awareness of palliative care in Taiwan, the EIU said.
Taiwan is one of the first few nations in the world to introduce a hospice palliative care system.
In 2000, it passed the Hospice and Palliative Care Act (安寧緩和醫療條例), which provides its citizens with the right to issue do-not- resuscitate instructions.
Fang Chun-kai (方俊凱), a physician at Mackay Memorial Hospital who specializes in hospice and palliative care, said compared with five years ago, Taiwan has instituted changes, such as introducing psychologists to the palliative care system to provide mental care and support for patients.
However, there is room for improvement when it comes to the allocation of human resources and the environments in hospitals and hospices, he said.
The rankings are based on hospital and hospice environments, the number of staff and how well-trained they are, the affordability of end-of-life care and the public’s involvement in palliative care.
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:
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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