A Facebook post by a US student who talked about his experience of receiving high-quality, low-cost medical care in Taiwan has gone viral and has been picked up by the Washington Post.
Kevin Bozeat, 25, who is studying in Taiwan, related how efficiently he was treated when he went to the emergency room of a Taiwanese hospital with severe gastrointestinal symptoms.
“I was immediately checkedin by an English-speaking nurse,” Bozeat wrote on Feb. 17 in a post titled “Went to the ER in Taiwan.”
“Within 20 minutes I was given IV fluids and anti-emetics. They took blood tests and did an ultrasound to ensure it wasn’t gall stones or appendicitis. From there I was given a diagnosis: a particularly severe case of Acute Viral Gastroenteritis (aka the stomach flu),” he wrote.
He said he was later discharged with a prescription for anti-emetics and pain medication, and was back to normal after a few days.
The total bill for the hospital visit and medication was US$80, Bozeat said, adding that if he had National Health Insurance (NHI) coverage it would have been less.
“This could have easily cost me hundreds or even thousands in the US without insurance. But here in Taiwan I was able to receive speedy, quality care comparable to what I would have gotten in a US hospital for relatively small amount of money,” Bozeat wrote. “Given this experience, I no longer have a reason to fear or hesitate getting care in Taiwan should I ever need it.”
His post has since gained more than 120,000 likes on Facebook and has been shared 210,000 times. It was also referenced in a Washington Post report on Feb. 28 that mentioned Taiwan’s health insurance system amid intensifying debates about healthcare in the US.
In a follow-up post on Feb. 24, Bozeat said he wanted to make a clarifying statement in response to some of the comments on his first post.
“This system exists because the Taiwanese government believes that healthcare is a right for all of its citizens, rather than a privilege for those who can afford it,” he wrote, citing a Ministry of Health and Welfare English-language brochure.
The Washington Post, citing a report released last month by the journal Health Affairs, said about 6.1 percent of Taiwan’s GDP was spent on healthcare in 2017, whereas the US spent about 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare during the same period.
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
RSS