Doctors may legally remove life-supporting devices from terminally-ill patients who choose to die in a more dignified manner after a legal revision was passed by the legislature yesterday.
The legislation, sponsored by KMT Legislator Chiang Yi-wen (江綺雯), conditionally frees medical professionals from extending the lives of terminally sick patients with life-support devices.
Patients and their family members have said that emergency measures serve only to lengthen the suffering of patients who have no chance of recovery.
"To save dying patients continues to pose a moral dilemma for doctors and patients alike despite the introduction of a natural death law two years ago. The legal revision, I hope, can reduce medical disputes in connection with such predicaments," Chiang said
Under the amendment, doctors may pull the plug after patients or their family members express their intentions in a written statement. The patients must be certified as "terminally ill" by at least two doctors.
Chiang said the amended law can both help save medical resources and ease the pain of terminally ill patients before they die.
"The purpose of medicine is to cure patients, not hurt them," she said. "That being so, their wishes not to suffer further but die in a more dignified manner should be respected."
DPP Legislator Lai Ching-te (賴清德) said because doctors are obligated to do whatever they can to extend the lives of their patients, doctors often see their patients going through needless suffering before their deaths.
TSU Legislator Chien-lin Whei-chun (錢林慧君) said US doctors will consult with terminally ill patients before administering life-saving measures.
She said it is time Taiwan also introduced the practice.
Thirty-five earthquakes have exceeded 5.5 on the Richter scale so far this year, the most in 14 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said on Facebook on Thursday. A large earthquake in Hualien County on April 3 released five times as much the energy as the 921 Earthquake on Sept. 21, 1999, the agency said in its latest earthquake report for this year. Hualien County has had the most national earthquake alerts so far this year at 64, with Yilan County second with 23 and Changhua County third with nine, the agency said. The April 3 earthquake was what caused the increase in
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is unlikely to attempt an invasion of Taiwan during US president-elect Donald Trump’s time in office, Taiwanese and foreign academics said on Friday. Trump is set to begin his second term early next year. Xi’s ambition to establish China as a “true world power” has intensified over the years, but he would not initiate an invasion of Taiwan “in the near future,” as his top priority is to maintain the regime and his power, not unification, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University distinguished visiting professor and contemporary Chinese politics expert Akio Takahara said. Takahara made the comment at a
DEFENSE: This month’s shipment of 38 modern M1A2T tanks would begin to replace the US-made M60A3 and indigenous CM11 tanks, whose designs date to the 1980s The M1A2T tanks that Taiwan expects to take delivery of later this month are to spark a “qualitative leap” in the operational capabilities of the nation’s armored forces, a retired general told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) in an interview published yesterday. On Tuesday, the army in a statement said it anticipates receiving the first batch of 38 M1A2T Abrams main battle tanks from the US, out of 108 tanks ordered, in the coming weeks. The M1 Abrams main battle tank is a generation ahead of the Taiwanese army’s US-made M60A3 and indigenously developed CM11 tanks, which have
CASE COUNT: The deceased had advised law enforcement agencies regarding 60 fraud cases this year, leading to the confiscation of NT$9.3 billion in alleged illegal proceeds Prosecutors yesterday launched an investigation into the death of cryptocurrency expert Miffy Chen (陳梅慧), who died in a car crash on Wednesday under what some consider to be suspicious circumstances following her work with law enforcement to track down NT$9.3 billion (US$286.97 million) in alleged illegal proceeds. Prosecutor-General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) tasked the Hsinchu District Prosecutors’ Office with investigating the incident following requests from the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) and other agencies with which she worked to crack several prominent cases involving financial fraud and money laundering. Chen was killed in a six-car pileup near Hsinchu in the northbound lanes of Sun