The Ministry of Health and Welfare yesterday said it has proposed an amendment to the Medical Act (醫療法) to bar shareholding company representatives from their affiliated medical foundations’ boards.
“The proposal was made to prevent medical foundations from becoming affiliated companies’ holdings centers,” Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said.
The proposed amendment is aimed at improving regulations on medical corporations for better organizational management, reducing administrative and financial disturbance and contributing to society, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator and physician Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) said.
Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation chief executive Joanne Liu (劉淑瓊) said hospitals are allowed to make a profit, but it is important that they are self-disciplined and not view making a profit as their first priority.
More than a dozen physicians at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in June last year resigned en masse, which highlighted management problems on the hospital’s board.
Ministry Department of Medical Affairs Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said the proposed amendment is listed as a priority bill in this legislative session, adding that if it is passed, Formosa Plastics Group shareholders that represent the companies must withdraw from the hospital’s board.
Chen said that in addition to regulating the composition of medical corporations’ boards and achieving better public welfare, the proposed amendment would also stipulate that hospitals must allocate 20 percent of their income surplus to public welfare and 5 percent to improving their employees’ salaries or recruiting more personnel.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
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The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
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