Hou Wu-chung (侯武忠), a doctor who spent his time touring outlying islands on his personal boat to provide medical assistance to underserved communities, passed away on Monday last week at the age of 55 after serving the Penghu community for over 20 years.
Hou in February discovered that he had pancreatic cancer. Despite seeking treatment at a hospital in Kaohsiung, Hou was unable to defeat the cancer.
The Penghu native dedicated the prime of his life to serving his hometown.
Photo taken from Hou Wu-chung’s Facebook page
After graduating from the Kaohsiung Medical University College of Medicine, Hou returned to Penghu. In his 20-year medical career, Hou spent most of his time serving the outlying islands of Wangan Township (望安), Cimei Township (七美), Baisha Township (白沙) and others, Penghu County Public Health Bureau Director-General Chen Shu-chuan (陳淑娟) said.
Hou was previously also chief of the Baisha Township Public Health Center.
Hou decided to purchase a boat with his own money after discovering that the strong northeasterly winds in Penghu often caused delays in commuter boat arrivals and that patients on outlying islands would sometimes have to wait days for doctors to arrive.
Recognizing that residents of the outlying islands were underserved as a healthcare population and not wanting especially for older patients to suffer, Hou spent half a year learning from an elderly captain how to navigate a boat and obtained his boating license. He traveled on his boat every week to visit patients and won himself the title of “captain-doctor” in the local community.
In earlier days when Penghu’s medical professionals were understaffed, Hou also acted as coroner and was on call 24 hours a day.
“The people who live on the Penghu islands are like my family,” Hou once said, adding that he was happy as long as all of them were safe and healthy.
Hou treated his patients like members of his family, Chen said, adding that his efforts won the praise of the islands’ residents.
A funeral service is to be held for Hou at the Jyudao Cemetery (菊島福園) in Penghu’s Magong City (馬公) on Sunday.
In 2002, Hou received a Medical Contribution Award — jointly given by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Health, Welfare and Environment Foundation and others — when he was less than 40 years old.
This year, he also received an award from the Penghu District Prosecutors’ Office for his role as a forensic medical examiner and was honored in the journal published by the office.
The Penghu County Public Health Bureau has asked President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to honor Hou with a presidential citation, it said, adding that the local community has also expressed its desire to honor the late doctor with a bronze statue.
Additional reporting by CNA
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS