Taipei Chang Gung Memorial Hospital chairwoman Diana Wang (王瑞慧) has returned to Taiwan to deal with the mass resignation of emergency-room doctors at its Linkou branch after two emergency-room chief doctors were fired.
The hospital on Friday confirmed that 22 emergency-room doctors had submitted their resignations after two emergency-room supervisors were dismissed, but denied claims that it had tried to reduce the number of emergency-room doctors in the face of financial difficulties.
Senior supervisors are trying to persuade the doctors to stay and Wang returned from the US on Friday to meet with hospital management and emergency-room doctors, the hospital said.
Rumors circulated on Friday that 17 emergency-room doctors at the hospital’s Keelung branch and the only emergency-room doctor at the Yunlin branch had also submitted their resignations.
The Keelung branch said that six doctors had said they wanted to resign, but had been persuaded to stay.
The Yunlin branch yesterday said that its only emergency-room doctor has resigned for personal reasons and that doctors from other departments were taking over emergency-room duties.
Dozens of medical staff at the Linkou branch posted a video to Facebook that shows them wearing blue scrubs and exchanging hugs.
Emergency-room teams stand by each other and hospitals should “respect the ER profession,” staff said in the video.
More than 40 emergency-room teams from hospitals nationwide posted group photographs on a Facebook page called “Save the ER” in a show of support for the Linkou Branch team.
“Supporting our partners at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, fight for the value of emergency-rooms,” one caption read.
A document reportedly circulating at the Linkou branch alleges that Chang Gung Medical Foundation Steering Committee chairman Lee Shih-tseng (李石增) and Linkou branch superintendent Cheng Ming-hui (鄭明輝) have been relieved of their duties.
However, the hospital’s public relations office told the Chinese-language Apple Daily that any personnel changes would be published next week at the earliest.
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