Extending a helping hand
I read your article “Teenager with rare disease pleads for financial help” (Sept. 22, page 2) with interest.
It seems to me quite shocking that a modern, relatively affluent place like Taiwan, with a heavily subsidized national health service can sit back and let such things happen. Surely, the purpose of having a national health service is to provide social healthcare for all, regardless of illness or condition, with additional funding (where necessary) from the government. In the UK, where I am from, the government provides a National Health Service for all and, while it may not be the most perfect social health system in the world and waiting lists can be woefully long, doctors do subscribe to the Hippocratic oath and treat and care for all illnesses and disorders, whatever these may be.
I felt rather sad to read that a 17-year-old girl, who should be happy and excited at being on the cusp of adulthood and planning which university to attend, is being forced, in an “advanced” place such as Taiwan, to practically get down on her knees and beg for help from the public. But, let’s be honest here, the average take-home salary in Taiwan is approximately NT$30,000 (according to InvesTaiwan), so some benign benefactor coming along and offering the full amount on a monthly basis, when many are themselves struggling for survival, strikes me as being rather unlikely.
Which is where I confess to being a little bit ashamed of the Taipei Times. The foreign community (at least the long-term, professional expatriate community) is highly affluent and generally earns the equivalent of what they would earn in their home countries (if not more, because of lower taxes). With the cost of living being low and earning what, compared with the average salary here, is a very high salary, I would bet that most expatriates are actually better off than in their home countries, let alone in comparison with the Taiwanese population. I know I am.
So, it seems a little odd to me that the Taipei Times, a fairly important provider of news to the expatriate community, deemed this story important enough to carry, but completely failed to offer any information on how concerned members of the public can help support this poor young girl.
I mentioned this story to my partner, who said that in the local (Chinese-language) online press, articles have indeed provided details of the bank account that donations should be paid into for people wanting to help this girl get treatment. It beggars belief that similar information is not offered in the Taipei Times. If your paper would print or place the details online with the article, I’m confident that members of the foreign community would want to donate and before long, this girl would have more than enough money monthly for her treatment and other costs.
If that would not serve as a shining example of how the foreign community (including myself) can help people in need in Taiwan, then I am not really sure what would.
ADAM SHRIMPTON
Taipei
Editor’s note: For more information, please contact Hu Mao-lin (胡茂林), head of administration at Hujiang High School (滬江高中), 02-8663-1122, ext. 221. Donations can be sent to First Bank, Jingmei Branch, account no. 10668028186, account name Hsu Wei-ting (第一銀行, 景美分行, 帳戶: 10668028186, 戶名: 徐薇婷)
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