The Filipino community on Saturday called for factories in Taiwan to provide safer environments for its workers after a Filipina died because of a chemical spill this week.
The woman, identified by local Chinese-language media as Deserie Castro Tagubasi, 29, died on Wednesday at Taipei Veterans General Hospital after suffering chemical burns when a container of a mixture containing hydrofluoric acid fell and splattered against her legs.
Tagubasi was working at an electronics plant in Miaoli County’s Chunan Science Park (竹南科學園區) operated by LED maker Tyntek Corp, local media reported.
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
Fidel A. Macauyag, labor attache and director of the Philippine Overseas Labor Office in Taichung, said that he has faith in Taiwanese investigators, and would follow up on their progress after Tagubasi’s body has been returned to the Philippines.
He would coordinate with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, he said.
Macauyag said he hopes that an in-depth investigation will be carried out by the police and labor authorities to avoid a repeat of the accident.
“The government can implement regulations to prevent similar accidents,” he said. “I hope that something can be done to properly protect not only foreign, but local workers.”
If the employer is found to be guilty due to negligence then they should be held liable, Macauyag added.
While the incident might be considered an isolated case, he said that he talked with some of Tagubasi’s coworkers and there are still questions to be asked regarding safety at the company.
“Apparently, very corrosive chemicals are used to clean metals and electronic parts, while the workers are only provided with an apron as protective gear, which covers only the front of the body from the upper chest to the knees,” Macauyag said.
“This is not enough. I think that if a person is working with these chemicals, they should be fully protected and neutralizing agents should be readily available on the premises in case of accidents,” he said.
According to the workers who gave Tagubasi first aid, there was no chemical readily available to neutralize the effects of the corrosive acid, he said.
A former employee of the company, who wished to remain anonymous, confirmed what Macauyag said.
“We only wore a lab gown type of clothing, which covered to just below the knee. When we handled chemicals we just added an apron, two thick facial masks, headgear and optional goggles,” she said.
The company also failed to provide foreign workers with proper safety training, such as first aid or formal training about what to do in the event of an emergency, she said.
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
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
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