The Taichung Health Bureau on Saturday told the city’s public health center personnel that they had “no right to refuse” assignments after center medical workers said that they were being sent to homes of people who might have died from COVID-19.
Center healthcare workers said that they were asked to visit the homes of those who had died to test the bodies for COVID-19, which they said placed them at unnecessary risk of contracting the disease and becoming “mobile sources of infection.”
The measure was necessary to ease the minds of city residents, bureau director Wu Ya-ling (吳雅玲) said, adding that center medical staff had no right to refuse to conduct the tests.
The urgency of the outbreak made their compliance “one aspect of their professional ethics,” she said.
Protecting themselves from infection is a basic part of their job, she added.
The workers said that the procedure stipulated by the Central Epidemic Command Center and the High Prosecutors’ Office calls for a specially appointed forensic investigator to examine bodies suspected of infection.
“The Taichung City Government is breaking central government procedure to put city residents at ease,” a medical worker said on condition of anonymity. “The homes that doctors and nurses are being sent into have no suitable place to put on and remove protective clothing, and have inadequate lighting to conduct tests.”
Doctors and nurses had to use cellphones for the light to conduct tests and were instructed to transport medical waste in their personal vehicles, they said.
“We hope the Taichung City Government can respect the professional division of labor, and let forensic investigators do the job of determining cause of death,” they said. “Letting forensic investigators examine the bodies is also respectful toward the deceased.”
Wu said the city was not asking the personnel to test the bodies in all cases.
For homicides, suicides, car accidents and other situations where a cause of death was more apparent, doctors did not need to examine the bodies, she said, adding that the policy was implemented after reports of sudden death cases in Taipei and New Taipei City.
“People are worried and it takes time to conduct autopsies,” she said. “We are only doing this in special cases — of which there have so far only been five.”
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