The government values healthcare workers’ contributions to the country and will strive to improve their work environment, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday.
Ma told a seminar with staffers from Greater Kaohsiung’s Chang Gung Memorial Hospital that healthcare was a very taxing profession, as shown by the fact that only 130,000 out of a total of 190,000 people who have a healthcare license actually stay in the sector.
There have been deaths from overwork among medical interns and other healthcare workers, he said, and he promised to promote reforms on working hours, workload and pay for the sector.
Photo: Huang Chi-yuan, Taipei Times
Taiwan’s healthcare system was rated as the second-best in the world by The Economist magazine, mainly thanks to the national health insurance system, which reaches 99.4 percent of the population.
The nation’s excellent healthcare services and its active participation in international humanitarian medical missions have won it worldwide recognition, Ma said
When asked how he would boost government efficiency and address the development gap between northern and southern Taiwan, Ma said his administration has worked very hard to enhance its efficiency, but more needs to be done.
In the International Institute for Management Development’s (IMD) latest competitiveness report, the efficiency of Taiwan’s government was ranked 10th in the world, down four notches from the previous year. Government intervention in fuel prices was one reason cited by IMD for the downgrade.
That report highlights the government’s dilemma, since the public expects the government to curb fuel price increases, he said.
As for the development gap, the government will promote various development projects in southern Taiwan worth a total of NT$740 billion (US$25.7 billion) over the next few years as part of its efforts to narrow the regional gap, he said.
After the seminar, Ma participated in the unveiling of a statue of the late Wang Yung-ching (王永慶), who founded the Gang Gung Hospital network. The statue was erected in a park in the grounds of the hospital’s Greater Kaohsiung branch.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
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