Ten hospital healthcare practitioner unions yesterday said they would participate in a demonstration tomorrow, calling for amendments to be passed to improve labor conditions.
Issues such as the mass resignation of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital surgeons last year and a scandal involving the Mackay Memorial Hospital chairman earlier this year highlight the need for stricter supervision of hospital governing committees, Taipei Doctors Union president Ellery Huang (黃致翰) said.
Regulations should be amended so that hospital employee representatives can join board meetings, he said, adding that a proposed amendment to the Medical Act (醫療法), which seeks to regulate corporate hospitals’ distribution of profits, is stagnating at the Legislative Yuan, so they urge legislators to make it a priority.
Photo: CNA
Trade union members should also be invited to accompany government inspectors during labor inspections, and mandatory nurse-patient ratios should be strictly legislated and altered to suit the three work shifts, Huang added.
“A high patient-to-nurse ratio certainly affects patient safety,” Taiwan Nurses Union president Jane Lu (盧孳艷) said, adding that studies suggest that patient mortality rates increase by about 7 percent for every extra patient that a nurse must take care of.
She said after the “one fixed day off and one flexible rest day” labor policy went into effect last year, most hospitals tightened control over nurses’ working hours, but did not hire more nurses, so nurses have been forced to take care of more patients and work under extreme pressure, she said.
The regular hospital regulations only have strict rules on the patient-to-nurse ratio in emergency rooms, so the union is calling for them to be amended so that hospitals are required to be transparent about the ratio in all departments, Lu said.
Pingtung Christian Hospital Labor Union president Chan Chin-chun (詹智鈞) said that corporate hospitals’ financial statements show that most hospitals’ profits increase year after year, but the union feels that employees’ labor conditions have not improved.
The law should be amended so that hospitals have to be more transparent regarding their financial statuses, use part of their profits to improve labor conditions and allow employees to join their salary committees, he said.
A drunk woman was sexually assaulted inside a crowded concourse of Taipei Railway Station on Thursday last week before a foreign tourist notified police, leading to calls for better education on bystander intervention and review of security infrastructure. The man, surnamed Chiu (邱), was taken into custody on charges of sexual assault, taking advantage of the woman’s condition and public indecency. Police discovered that Chiu was a fugitive with prior convictions for vehicle theft. He has been taken into custody and is to complete his unserved six-month sentence, police said. On Thursday last week, Chiu was seen wearing a white
EVA Airways, one of the leading international carriers in Taiwan, yesterday said that it was investigating reports that a cabin crew manager had ignored the condition of a sick flight attendant, who died on Saturday. The airline made the statement in response to a post circulating on social media that said that the flight attendant on an outbound flight was feeling sick and notified the cabin crew manager. Although the flight attendant grew increasingly ill on the return flight, the manager did not contact Medlink — a system that connects the aircraft to doctors on the ground for treatment advice during medical
The Taoyuan Flight Attendants’ Union yesterday vowed to protest at the EVA Air Marathon on Sunday next week should EVA Airway Corp’s management continue to ignore the union’s petition to change rules on employees’ leave of absence system, after a flight attendant reportedly died after working on a long-haul flight while ill. The case has generated public discussion over whether taking personal or sick leave should affect a worker’s performance review. Several union members yesterday protested at the Legislative Yuan, holding white flowers and placards, while shouting: “Life is priceless; requesting leave is not a crime.” “The union is scheduled to meet with
‘UNITED FRONT’ RHETORIC: China’s TAO also plans to hold weekly, instead of biweekly, news conferences because it wants to control the cross-strait discourse, an expert said China’s plan to expand its single-entry visa-on-arrival service to Taiwanese would be of limited interest to Taiwanese and is a feeble attempt by Chinese administrators to demonstrate that they are doing something, the Mainland Affairs Council said yesterday. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office (TAO) spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) said the program aims to facilitate travel to China for Taiwanese compatriots, regardless of whether they are arriving via direct flights or are entering mainland China through Hong Kong, Macau or other countries, and they would be able to apply for a single-entry visa-on-arrival at all eligible entry points in China. The policy aims
RSS