A Pakistani girl who was born with severe facial deformities expressed her gratitude to Taiwanese doctors in Taipei yesterday, following a recent second operation that gave her a new face.
Six-year-old Bibi Laiba, who was born with a cleft palate that left her with a 4cm opening in the top of her mouth and a displaced right eye, sang a song of thanks at a press conference at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital’s Linkou branch for the medical care she received.
“Thank you. Thanks to all Taiwanese people,” Laiba said, who was accompanied by her parents.
Photo: Chung Li-hua, Taipei Times
During the second surgery performed in September, doctors operated on her nose and lips and further rearranged her facial features into normal positions, said Lo Lun-jou (羅綸洲), deputy director of the hospital’s Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Philip Chen, director of the hospital’s Craniofacial Center, headed the medical team that treated Laiba.
The girl is expected to return home as soon as she has fully recovered from the operation, Lo said. Before her first surgery last year, Laiba’s eyes and nose were seriously displaced, which led to difficulty in speaking and eating, Laiba’s father said.
Therefore, she disliked being around strangers because she was unable to speak clearly, he said. However, he added, the girl became a cheerful child after the first surgery.
The help from Taiwan is something that they will always feel very grateful for in their lives, and the kindness of the Taiwanese people will always remain in their hearts, Laiba’s mother said.
The non-profit Noordhoff Craniofacial Foundation helped the family with flights to Taiwan.
It also announced its voluntary medical service group, co-established with the hospital, will continue to cooperate with several hospitals in Vietnam to treat more patients with facial deformities.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS