The father of a two-year-old boy who last month died of COVID-19 yesterday asked why it took more than an hour to find an ambulance to take his son to a hospital, saying the delay led to his son’s death.
“What exactly happened during those 81 minutes?” he wrote on Facebook.
The boy died on April 19 following six days of treatment in an intensive care unit at Shuang Ho Hospital in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和).
Photo: Lai Hsiao-yung, Taipei Times
He was the first child in Taiwan to die of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in 2020.
Attributing the cause of the child’s death to the rapid deterioration of his condition after he developed severe symptoms, the hospital said at the time that he died of brain stem encephalitis resulting from septicemia triggered by COVID-19.
Prior to the boy’s death, nobody under 30 had died of COVID-19 complications in Taiwan.
Photo courtesy of EnEn’s family
“After En En [恩恩, the boy’s name] tested positive for the disease with a high fever, we repeatedly called the Jhonghe District Public Health Center, but the call was never answered. We called the New Taipei City Fire Department, which asked us to get approval from the health center first, and then dialed 119 four times before an ambulance was dispatched,” the father said. “We waited 81 minutes for the ambulance to come, and that was the hardest and longest time in our lives.”
“Recalling the situation, we were utterly hopeless and as his father I feel great regret and heartbreak,” he said. “I want the authorities to tell us the truth. Why it took 81 minutes for the ambulance to come, and why En En was only able to get to the hospital 91 minutes later.”
The father said he and his wife have sent an application to the New Taipei City Government, the Centers for Disease Control, Jhonghe health center and the 1922 hotline, asking them to release the call records.
In response to media queries yesterday, New Taipei City Mayor Hou you-yi (侯友宜) refrained from commenting, saying only that “every life must be treasured and everything possible must be done to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.”
New Taipei City Department of Health Director Chen Ran-chou (陳潤秋) said “everything that should have been done was done,” and the ambulance was dispatched in accordance with Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法) guidelines.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the Central Epidemic Command Center, yesterday said that recordings of 1922 hotline calls are preserved for a year, and an applicant should present their ID to access the recordings.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS