The Legislative Yuan is conducting a line-by-line review of the proposed indigenous peoples health act.
As a social worker carrying out services in indigenous communities, I can tell you that there is an overall shortage of healthcare resources in those communities. This is because the existing healthcare and medical policy is lacking an understanding of indigenous peoples’ everyday environment, as well as failing to address the different needs of indigenous people.
Ministry of the Interior data show that the average life expectancy of indigenous people in 2021 was 6.94 years shorter than the rest of the population of Taiwan. The gap is due to various factors.
For one, indigenous people have experienced misunderstandings or even discrimination from some healthcare workers due to their lifestyle and habits. More often than not, there are also conflicts in patient-physician relationships because of the language barrier, and that is where social workers need to intervene to act as a cultural interpreter and help integrate resources.
In the face of this predicament, the passing of the indigenous peoples health act should be able to assist the government in addressing the uneven distribution of healthcare resources via research on indigenous culture, and the integration of resources and social campaigns.
Only in this way can the gap between average life expectancy of indigenous people and the general population be shortened.
From the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to the White Paper on Health and Welfare Policy and the Indigenous Peoples Chapter (衛生福利政策白皮書暨原住民族專章) published by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, it is high time that the government takes a step further in addressing ethnic health inequalities.
I hope legislators and the public can come together as one to support and accelerate the passing of the act, so that Taiwan can live up to its reputation of being a truly diverse and inclusive society.
Ma Chih-cheng,
Hualien County
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not
RSS