Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday said there was no need to force a major cancer hospital to join the city’s emergency medical network.
“You can lead a ‘cow’ to water, but you can’t make it drink,” Ko said, referring to the Koo Foundation Sun Yat-sen Cancer Center, which on Tuesday rebuffed the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s demand that it accept emergency room patients from other hospitals.
The ministry had asked the Taipei City Government to explore the possibility of including the hospital in the emergency medical network, following controversy over its refusal to treat burn victims from the fire at Formosa Fun Coast (八仙海岸) on June 27.
The hospital, which is close to the water park, refused to accept victims of the explosion, saying it lacked the equipment and personnel to provide adequate treatment for burn injuries.
Ko said he had taken part in the design of the city’s emergency medical network when he was working as the director of National Taiwan University Hospital’s traumatology department.
Incorporating the cancer center into the network would not necessarily improve the quality of the city’s emergency care, he said.
“Frankly speaking, there are too many hospitals responsible for providing emergency treatment in Taipei. I would prefer that there be fewer hospitals, but that their capacity and quality of care be upgraded,” Ko said.
Having too many hospitals responsible for emergency care prevents treatment from being concentrated, leading to poor results, he added.
Taipei City Department of Health Medical Affairs Division Deputy Director Huang Ching-yao (黃敬堯) said that the issue of whether it was the cancer center’s legal responsibility to provide emergency treatment was “complicated.”
As a “regional hospital,” the center is required to provide full emergency room services under the ministry’s evaluation standards; however, it had passed the ministry’s evaluation tests with equipment and staff that are only capable of treating cancer patients, Huang said.
The city government does not have the legal authority to require the hospital to make any emergency room changes, he added
Separately, Ko said that he was open to discussions about adjusting the cost of insurance for the city’s annual New Year’s countdown party, but he was not prepared to make an immediate judgement on whether last year’s budget was adequate.
Media reports yesterday quoted Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) as saying that the city government’s insurance coverage last year was inadequate in the event of an accident, with an average compensation of only NT$42 for each of the 1.18 million participants.
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