One week ago tonight, a horrific tragedy occurred in New Taipei City that exposed weaknesses in the nation’s public safety and disaster relief systems and has sorely taxed the resources of the medical system.
Even as the nation united in an outpouring of concern for the victims, political rivalries have intruded, as have the knee-jerk reactions of those who would prefer a Band-Aid approach to tackling systemic problems rather than a more reasoned, long-term search for solutions.
The number of badly burned victims from the fire at a Color Play Asia event at the Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) water park demonstrated that no single municipality is equipped to cope with such an unprecedented disaster — which stretched ambulance services and hospitals’ emergency room services to breaking point — nor should they be.
Better integration of municipalities’ emergency response systems is needed, and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je’s (柯文哲) suggestions that injury reporting be integrated and digitized nationwide and that ambulances be equipped with tablet computers so that patients’ conditions can be reported before arriving to the hospital are a good place to start.
As a former head of National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Traumatology, Ko knows firsthand that an effective triage system is crucial to ensuring the best use of medical resources and treatment in an emergency.
However, building a fully integrated triage system, whether among neighboring municipalities, on a regional basis or nationwide takes time and requires both long-term commitment and political will — both of which have proven lacking after the intense initial public interest has faded after previous disasters.
Long-term commitment by government agencies at all levels is crucial, because the victims of the Color Play Asia fire face months, if not years, of treatment, including skin grafts and, for many, reconstructive surgeries. These treatments will tax the strength of the victims and their families, as well as hospitals and medical staff.
Hospitals are struggling to cope in terms of personnel and supplies. A Taipei Veterans General Hospital spokesman said changing the dressings of a severely burnt patient takes eight to 10 medical staff an average of an hour-and-a-half each time. Multiply that by the scores of victims in critical and intensive care and the scope of the staff problem clearly becomes an issue that needs to be addressed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The ministry’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was quick to establish an information platform for the medical supplies required by the hospitals caring for the victims and it is coordinating shipments and disbursements of cadaver and artificial skin.
The ministry and the FDA are the appropriate channels for organizing such resources, which is why the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) has been criticized for turning to China for help.
KMT Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said that as the ruling party, the KMT has to bring together all parties at the local and central levels to ensure the availability of medical supplies and personnel to meet the victims’ needs. He also met with the Red Cross Society of the Republic of China to ask it to coordinate with the ministry on an international appeal for help.
Well-intentioned as Chu’s actions were, he was wrong to make them in his role as head of the KMT. It demonstrated both the KMT’s continued devotion to the party-state model and Taiwan’s lack of success as a nation in establishing a system of government separate from political parties.
It is the government, in the form of the ministry or the FDA, that should be making such requests, whether to the Red Cross or another nation, not the head of a political party, be it ruling or otherwise.
Chu’s job as New Taipei City mayor should be his primary role in handling the Color Play Asia disaster, not his KMT post.
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