Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday requested the Department of Health review the nation's medical system -- including Taipei City -- after Taipei hospitals refused to admit an abused girl on Monday.
"Deeply distraught by the incident, the premier asked the health department to learn a lesson from the tragic incident and examine the nation's medical emergency system," Cabinet Spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) told a press conference held after the weekly closed-door Cabinet meeting yesterday morning.
Chen said that Taipei City Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Chen, who practiced medicine before entering politics, said that his preliminary judgment was that the problem lied in the reporting system of Taipei Municipal Jen-Ai Hospital and the way the hospital handled the case.
"Time is critical for trauma patients, especially for those suffering from head injuries," he said. "Under such circumstances, what the hospital should have done is to perform surgery first, and then worry about whether there was an empty bed."
Chen also criticized the hospital's neurology doctors for lacking compassion for such a young patient, saying they should have taken the initiative to contact other hospitals to find an available hospital bed or neurologist.
"I'm totally stunned by the fact that there wasn't a single empty bed available for a little girl suffering from a serious head injury in a city like Taipei, where medical resources are abundant," he said.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
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