Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday afternoon met with Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) at a forum in Taipei to share ideas for the implementation of the Long-term Care Services Program 2.0 and the Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program.
To enact the two major policies of President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration, Lai has led Executive Yuan members in a series of forums nationwide to communicate with local government officials.
The last forum was held with the Taipei City Government yesterday.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“We do not want to ask for any particular funding from the central government, because the city government scrimps and saves,” Ko said.
However, many of Taipei’s policies are more advanced than those of other areas, so unified application of the law makes it difficult for the city government to implement some policies, such as pilot long-term care service projects, he said.
One problem of the central government is division of labor without cooperation, but it is easier for the city government to coordinate its departments, Ko said, adding that regulations usually take the “positive listing” approach — not approving items that are not listed — which is another obstacle to pushing new policies.
Despite the problems the city has faced enacting policies, it does not need “any particular help from the central government,” Ko said.
In his opening speech, Lai praised Ko’s administration for its outstanding performance in implementing social welfare policies and pilot projects that advance the Long-term Care Services Program 2.0, as well as successfully holding the Taipei Summer Universiade last year.
The problems mentioned by Ko would be discussed, and the National Development Council will hopefully loosen regulations to allow a “negative listing” approach so that Taipei can push advanced policies, Lai said, adding that the Cabinet would accept Taipei’s application for Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program funding if it follows standard procedure.
Central and city government officials later held a closed-door meeting after the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Taipei Department of Health each delivered reports on long-term care policies carried out nationwide and in Taipei respectively.
After the meeting, Ko said they discussed a proposal to create special pipelines to transport water from New Taipei City’s Feitsui Reservoir (翡翠水庫), adding that Lai immediately agreed to provide NT$800 million (US$27.41 million) — half of the total budget after deducting self-financing of about NT$400 million.
Connecting the reservoir with the Chihtan Water Purification Plant in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) was proposed after Taipei and New Taipei City experienced high levels of water turbidity during and immediately after Typhoon Soudelour in 2015, with a total proposed budget of NT$2 billion.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
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