A draft act for the prevention and resolution of medical malpractice proposed by the Executive Yuan would be a step backward from the current mechanism for solving medical disputes, the Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation said yesterday.
The Legislative Yuan in December last year passed an amendment to Article 82 of the Medical Act (醫療法), which sets out conditions under which physicians can face criminal charges and civil liability in medical disputes, federation chairperson Joanne Liu (劉淑瓊) said.
The amendment also required the Executive Yuan to propose a specialized act regulating medical disputes, but the legislative review of the proposed act was on May 9 postponed due to controversies, she said.
The Childbirth Accident Emergency Relief Act (生產事故救濟條例) requires healthcare facilities to set up mediation task forces, but the foundation found that only 18 percent of patients in medical disputes this year have made use of the mechanism and 62 percent of them were unsatisfied with hospitals’ mediation, Liu said.
Three key aspects of a diversified two-way medical dispute resolution mechanism pilot program conducted by the Ministry of the Justice and the Ministry of Health and Welfare are not included in the draft act, she said.
The key aspects are: professional evaluation before mediation, holding a mediation meeting within 45 days, and having medical and legal professionals in the mediation committee, Liu said.
The draft act also lacks the key elements necessary to give patients and their families a sense of trust in hospitals’ mediation mechanism, and loosens regulations that require medical facilities with 100 or more beds to set up a mediation task force, she said, urging legislators to review the bill carefully.
Experience shows that some patients and their families could secretly record medical practitioners’ statements during mediation sessions and use them as evidence in court, Department of Medical Affairs Director-General Shih Chung-liang (石崇良) said.
Therefore, the draft act stipulates that statements made during mediation sessions may not be used as evidence in court litigation, to reduce tension between medical practitioners and patients during the process, he said.
The draft act requires healthcare facilities with 100 or more beds to set up a mediation task force, but that does not mean that disputes at facilities with fewer beds would be neglected, as there are professional groups that can assist in these cases, Shi said.
He said the draft act covers a wider range of medical disputes than the Childbirth Accident Emergency Relief Act, adding that the foundation might have misunderstood the proposed act.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai