The Taipei City Government is to start enforcing rules requiring a optometrist prescription to purchase contact lenses, Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said yesterday.
“We need to establish a new system and culture in which government decrees are to be followed rather than just taken into consideration,” Ko said, adding that requiring prescriptions to purchase contact lenses was a long-standing policy of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, which was also reinforced last month in a ministry press release.
“The thing I can’t stand most about this country is that when the central government issues an order, people act like they don’t have to take it seriously,” Ko said.
Photo: Yeh Kuan-yu, Taipei Times
He said that “revolution comes in stages,” with the requirement for a prescription applying only to individuals under 18 years of age or those purchasing contact lenses for the first time.
The Taipei Department of Health had announced earlier that all city residents would be required to present a prescription issued within the past six months before being allowed to purchase contact lenses, leading to criticism that the requirement would create an unnecessary hassle for city residents.
Ko said the new policy would take effect within the next two days, adding that the city government’s pool of young men doing alternate military service would be deployed to aid in enforcement.
Taipei Department of Health Commissioner Huang Shier-chieg (黃世傑) said the department would focus on investigating the sale of contact lenses online and through the mail — which is illegal — rather than focusing on physical stores.
The department’s announcement follows criticism from Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that the city is failing to issue fines to any of the over 100 online vendors of contact lenses that had been reported over the past year. She also said the department was failing to enforce requirements to present a prescription when purchasing contact lenses.
Additional reporting by Ye Kuan-yu
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