Employers are legally obliged to provide surgical masks to foreign carers who visit hospitals in the course of their duties, the Ministry of Labor (MOL) said on Thursday.
In a press release addressing response measures being taken against 2019 novel coronavirus, the ministry said that providing masks in hospitals falls under an employers’ legal responsibility to guarantee safe working conditions.
Failure to provide a safe working environment for foreign workers, if not rectified within a stated period, is punishable under the Employment Service Act (就業服務法) by a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000, as well as a two-year ban from employing foreign workers, the ministry said.
Photo: Li Ya-wen, Taipei Times
It is preparing a letter to be sent to employment agencies and associations to ensure that employers are aware of their obligations, the ministry said.
It offers 24-hour consultation services via the 1955 hotline to facilitate virus prevention outreach among the more than 700,000 migrant workers in Taiwan, it said, adding that services are available in Mandarin, English, Indonesian, Thai and Vietnamese.
Recently arrived migrant workers should keep watch for virus-related symptoms, including a cough or fever, within the first 14 days after arrival, and contact the 1955 migrant worker hotline or the Centers for Disease Control’s 1922 (or 0800-001-922) epidemic prevention hotline to report any concerns, the ministry 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
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