A message to students
We are at a crossroads in the COVID-19 pandemic, and I would like to recruit all university students to help make sure we move in the right direction.
We recently had a spike in domestic COVID-19 cases — a small increase compared with the rest of the world, but large for our country. It is something we need to wisely respond to. If the number of daily new cases continues to expand over the next two weeks, it means that COVID-19 has been spreading unnoticed in the community.
The potential is there for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of residents of Taiwan to become infected over the next one or two years. Many would become seriously ill, with an unknown number facing death in hospitals or at home. All of our medical and emergency systems would be pushed to their limits.
However, things do not have to be this way. If the number of confirmed local cases gradually decreases over the next two weeks, we might be able to completely stop the spread of COVID-19. Within a few months we would be able to return to our previously successful pandemic prevention tactics, while distributing COVID-19 vaccines.
How can you contribute? For the sake of yourself, your family, and your friends and classmates, stay home for a week or two. Do not go anywhere. Study, interact with your friends online, catch up on your rest, watch your favorite films. Do whatever you want, just please do it at home.
If your parents have no choice but to travel for work to support your families, remind them to wash their hands, wear masks, carry hand sanitizer and maintain social distance. Do this with kindness and awareness — nagging is not helpful.
If you decide to contribute to your family’s care by doing some grocery shopping, follow the same suggestions. When you return home, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water, and change into your stay-at-home clothes.
There is no need to turn your homes into prisons. Go out occasionally for a breath of fresh air at a local park, maybe ride a bicycle. Do not take public transportation, and do not go to public spaces with lots of people who are not practicing social distancing.
Most importantly, I ask you to overcome any idea you might have that “COVID-19 happens to other people, but not me. I am different.”
The truth is, all of us are susceptible until the large majority of residents are vaccinated.
If we all do these things, in two weeks or a month we can meet in-person at school, and once again receive international praise for the way our government and its citizens successfully reacted to the outbreak.
Take a break. See you in a month, with the knowledge that we did what was necessary to control the pandemic.
Chung-Yuan Huang
professor, Chang Gung University
Temporary healthcare staff
A Switzerland-based company first introduced temporary staffing to Taiwan in the mid-1990s, and it has since grown at breakneck speed into a multimillion-dollar industry, comprising more than 3 percent of the total labor force.
Employment agencies claim that temporary staffing offers firms hiring flexibility, allowing them to bring on extra staff amid a soaring market, without the risk of overstaffing if the market sours.
When applied to the healthcare system, it seems to create a big issue, and affects people’s health, especially among Taiwan’s rapidly aging population. It can even be harmful to people’s well-being.
Taiwan is undoubtedly one of the healthiest countries in the world, but when it comes to its healthcare system, people always point to poor working conditions at care facilities. Nurses and other medical professionals are expected to work long hours under extremely high pressure for less than NT$200 per hour.
For example, at the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Taichung Hospital, a temporary nurse can only earn NT$160 per hour. While this might benefit people who use medical services, it causes trouble for medical professionals and significantly reduces people’s willingness to become a nurse or other medical professional.
Temporary staffing might seriously affect workers, such as through the stress of chronic job insecurity, no hope of a pension and difficulty in landing a permanent job.
Moreover, a temporary nurse might not fully understand a patient’s health condition, because they only work for a short period during the patient’s treatment. A temporary nurse could also be dispatched to other care units, which creates difficulty for them. As a result, nurses would probably burn out and leave their job.
Taiwan needs skilled medical professionals for its aging society. High quality medical services are needed. Filling medical positions with temporary personnel is not wise, and cannot be used in clinical settings. Such hiring practices dramatically jeopardize jobs and harm people’s health.
Wu Chang-yu
Chiayi County
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