An 80-year-old mother ended the life of her severely disabled son, who had been bedridden for five decades, out of fear that he would be left with no one to care for him if she were to pass away. The Taipei District Court sentenced her to two-and-a-half years in prison, but the judge also recommended that the president consider granting the woman a special pardon.
The public has shown near-unanimous sympathy for the mother, yet no one is asking this crucial question. The family had hired a full-time, live-in domestic caregiver at their own expense — so why, then, did the mother feel she had no recourse but to end her son’s life? The heartbreaking truth is that hiring a foreign domestic caregiver for a person with a severe illness has never provided families with true relief.
Taiwan places strict limits on the hiring of legal migrant caregivers: in principle, only one foreign domestic caregiver can be hired for even the most severe cases. The monthly expenses associated with hiring two caregivers are far more than most families dealing with critical illnesses can afford. For cases requiring tracheostomies, bedsores and repositioning or suctioning every two hours, it is simply not possible for a single person to work around the clock without rest. In real caregiving settings, caregivers get sick, take days off, slack off or suddenly quit — and there is never a legal substitute for night shifts. As a result, the ones who ultimately shoulder continuous care are always family members. In this case, it was the elderly mother.
Even more saddening is that under both the Long-term Care 2.0 and 3.0 programs, having a foreign domestic caregiver is treated as if the family is using precious resources and their burden has already been reduced. As a result, once a foreign domestic caregiver is hired, respite services, home care or nursing hours and various other subsidies are significantly reduced or suspended. Subsidized respite care is limited to a maximum of 30 days a year, and institutions often have no available beds or refuse to take patients. How was an 80-year-old mother supposed to hand over her son, who had been paralyzed for half a century, to others for care?
A mother sending her son to the afterlife with her own hands is not an isolated incident — rather, it is a painful consequence of a failed long-term care policy. Having a foreign domestic caregiver does not mean a family gets to rest. It does not mean the family no longer needs government support. It does not mean that other family members can finally sleep through the night. When a foreign domestic caregiver is unfit for the position — whether that means they slack off, neglect their duties, ignore medical instructions or even engage in misconduct — it is hard for employers to terminate their contract. The Ministry of Labor often rejects such appeals on the grounds that unilateral termination is not allowed to protect migrant workers’ rights. Protecting migrant workers is not wrong, but binding a severely vulnerable family to an unsuitable domestic caregiver is tantamount to pushing them to the brink of despair. The patient remains at risk and the caregiver continues to endure insomnia and breakdowns, ultimately leading them to resort to the most extreme means to end their mutual suffering. The root cause of this tragedy is a system that failed to provide adequate support for the family of an individual facing critical illness and severe disability.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have requested a special pardon, while the Democratic Progressive Party has said that it would wait for the final verdict so as not to interfere with the judicial process. However, both parties are neglecting to confront the core institutional issue — why are families dealing with extremely severe health conditions not legally allowed to hire two affordable foreign domestic caregivers working in shifts? Why does there still exist a rule that cuts subsidies the moment a foreign domestic caregiver is hired? Why is respite care virtually non-existent? Why is it so difficult to promptly replace an unfit caregiver? I have a severe disability — I can only move a few fingers. What I fear most is not death, but being labeled as nothing but a burden on my family. Today, one mother could be pardoned — tomorrow, another. So long as the system remains unchanged, families with severely disabled members would always be faced with just two paths — either the designated caregiver breaks down first, or the patient is “mercifully” killed.
True compassion is not as simple as pardoning one mother — it is ensuring that millions of mothers never have to reach this point at all. Disabled people might never regain full function before they die, but they still have the right and dignity to keep living. The law must be amended immediately so that caregiving personnel can be properly coordinated, and that long-term care is no longer limited to only those who are semi-healthy or capable of rehabilitation — doing so strips people like me of a chance to live. If the system does not change, any tears shed are nothing more than belated grief. We, with lives bound to our beds, can no longer bear to witness any more “merciful” killings.
Liu Hsiao is a freelancer.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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