More than 50,000 people have never used their National Health Insurance (NHI) card to seek medical treatment, of whom men outnumber women by almost 2.5 times, National Health Insurance Administration statistics released on Monday showed.
As of the end of last year, 51,306 people — 36,577 men and 14,729 women — enrolled in the program had not used their NHI cards — which the agency began issuing 13 years ago — to seek medical treatment, the data showed.
By region, New Taipei City had the largest share at 10,135 people, followed by Taipei at 7,698, Kaohsiung with 5,108, Taichung at 5,008 and Taoyuan with 4,108, the statistics showed.
“The NHI data show an insured individual’s household registration information, but some people have moved abroad,” Medical Affairs Department head Parng I-ming (龐一鳴) said, providing one possible reason such people have not used NHI program benefits afforded to them.
Some of the people might be healthy and do not require treatment, he said.
The administration is concerned that some of the people could be disadvantaged and are unable to seek medical attention on their own, he added.
As older people usually need medical treatment more than younger people, the agency plans to provide local governments with data on 6,841 people older than 65 who have never used their NHI cards and encourage their social workers to gain a better understanding of such individuals’ situations, Parng said.
“Although men might seek medical treatment less often, they tend to endure an illness for longer periods of time,” Taiwan Health Reform Foundation vice chief executive Chu Hsieh-kuang (朱顯光) said.
“When they do seek medical attention, the illness has already become serious,” he added.
Asked about the concentration of such people in metropolitan areas, Chu said it is likely that people living in big cities have more health information and nutritional resources.
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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