A prisoner serving a sentence in jail in southern Taiwan was forced to serve as a doctor to other inmates and, in doing so, had accidentally killed one, the prisoner's family told the media yesterday.
They said that the prisoner, Wang Lu-wen (
However, the Ministry of Justice has rejected Wang's account, saying that unlawful medical treatment is strictly prohibited in correctional institutions, even though there is a serious lack of doctors.
Wang's sisters, accompanied by DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (
Wang, who is serving a sentence for larceny, was sent to Taitung County's Taiyuan Vocational Training Institute (
Citing letters from Wang and a copy of his confession given to the Taitung District Prosecutors' Office, Wang's sisters said that between June 1998 and July 1999, Wang had been ordered by officials at Taiyuan Vocational Training Institute to perform injections, suturing, and other medical tasks for ill inmates when there were no doctors or nurses on duty at the remote jail.
Wang's sisters said that at midnight on May 10, 1999, he was ordered to inject steroids into an asthma patient, Chu Tien (
"Then I could only helplessly watch as he stopped breathing and died in pain within five minutes," Wang said in one of his letters.
After the incident, prison officials tried to cover it up and asked him to cooperate by making false depositions, the letter said.
But Huang Chen-nan (
Citing reports by the Taiyuan institute, he said that Chu died three days after being hospitalized. But he added that the department would continue to investigate the matter.
The director of the Taiyuan institute, Hsieh Feng-hsing (
He said that it was inconceivable that the prison would ask Wang or any other inmate to serve as a doctor.
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