Two years ago, Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital surgeon Chou Ching-kai (
Fearing infection, Chou left the hospital just before the quarantine began and remained at home, defying orders from the Taipei City Government to return.
Last month, the Taipei High Court announced that Chou's refusal to return to the hospital in the midst of the outbreak did not violate the Doctor's Law (
PHOTO: CHENG HSUEH-YUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
While expressing gratitude for the verdict, Chou, along with family members of people who died from the SARS virus and human-rights activists yesterday urged the Taipei City Government to cancel all reprimands levied on hospital staff and called on the public to pay attention to human rights issues that have emerged as a result of the SARS outbreak -- even though the threat from the virus has long subsided.
"I chose to voluntarily quarantine myself at home during the SARS outbreak, which was an appropriate move in preventing the spread of the virus," said Chou, dean of the hospital's general surgery department. "However, the Taipei City Government called me a `runaway doctor' and used me as a scapegoat to cover their mistakes, which caused more casualties through the use of the quarantine."
As a result of the verdict, Chou yesterday said he planned to file a civil suit against Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
Amid the 2003 SARS outbreak, 975 hospital staff members were ordered to remain at the hospital as part of a quarantine. Chou and other three staff members failed to show up for the quarantine. The BOH then published their names and said they were "missing."
Later, the staff members were forced to return to the hospital. The city also filed lawsuits against them for alleged violations of the Communicable Disease Prevention Law (
During a press conference held by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights yesterday, Yen Chueh-an (
"First, Taipei City Government monopolized the situation. The decision to implement a quarantine -- which violated human rights -- only caused more casualties," Yen said. "Then, the BOH blamed the casualties on the doctors, and thus hurting their reputations."
The anti-SARS measures adopted by the authorities faced serious public criticism at the time, since the virus continued to spread despite the quarantine measures.
Hsu Ming-fei (徐銘馡), whose uncle died of SARS at the hospital, questioned the effectiveness of the quarantine and said that the city's bungling of containment measures caused needless deaths and illnesses and scarred their families.
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.
RSS