The majority of cancer patients say they also struggle with psychological problems, such as depression, the Hope Foundation for Cancer Care said yesterday, encouraging the provision of substantial care and support for cancer patients and their families.
About 550,000 families in Taiwan deal with cancer every year, the foundation said.
Patients often worry about ineffective treatments, side effects, relapses and the lack of economic or caregiving support available for their families — with some even feeling that giving up treatment would be better for their families, the foundation said.
A 2014 survey conducted by the foundation indicated that up to 82 percent of cancer patients feel some degree of psychological distress alongside their illness.
The foundation yesterday held a news conference to raise awareness about families and cancer and to launch a fundraising initiative.
Ya-chun (雅君) — a 38-year-old woman diagnosed with leukemia six years ago — spoke at the conference and shared her story of fighting cancer with the support of her family.
During her first chemotherapy session, Ya-chun developed septic shock and pancreatitis, so her husband had to give up work so that he could take care of her during her 332-day hospitalization.
Ya-chin said she often suffered from insomnia and felt depressed because she could not see her family, she said.
“I cannot lose [to cancer], because I know someone is still waiting for me at home,” Ya-chun said.
After being discharged from hospital, she was still too weak to go back to work and felt that she had become a burden to her family, she said.
However, her son, who is now 10, always encouraged her and even held her hand to help her cross the road when the sight in her left eye worsened and she lost her sense of balance, she said.
Foundation chief executive officer Elaine Su (蘇連瓔) said the average five-year survival rate for cancer patients in Taiwan increased from about 40 percent in 2006 to 54 percent in 2013, meaning that many cancer patients struggle with cancer for many years, and they need support to return to their families or their jobs.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods