The father of a boy who died of complications from COVID-19 has filed a lawsuit against the New Taipei City Government, saying that the cause of a delayed ambulance dispatch remains unclear almost six months after potentially contributing to his two-year-old son’s death.
Choking back tears, the father, surnamed Lin (林), said he was taking legal action to force the city government to be honest about the reason his family had to wait 81 minutes before an ambulance arrived at their residence to take his son, nicknamed En En (恩恩), to hospital.
“What I’ve asked for is the truth behind the 81 minutes, but you’ve left me tormented for more than six months,” Lin told reporters outside the New Taipei City District Court.
Photo: CNA
En En was the first child in Taiwan to die from COVID-19. He on April 14 developed severe symptoms and lost consciousness at home in the city’s Zhonghe District (中和). He died on April 19, just weeks after the first cases of a nationwide wave of infections with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 were reported.
The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) investigated the case and on July 5 released a report saying that En En’s mother first called the New Taipei City Fire Department to request an ambulance for her son at 5:59pm on April 14.
The city government dispatched an ambulance at 7:06pm and En En arrived at Shuang Ho Hospital at 7:27pm, the report said.
Lin has since May 27 asked the city government for access to telephone records between the city’s fire and health departments, as well as the Zhonghe District Health Center and other agencies related to the ambulance dispatch, but his requests have been refused.
The phone records, which were in June leaked to Chinese-language media, showed that the fire department was not able to contact the health department, which at the time served as the city’s ambulance dispatch center, to arrange an ambulance until 6:25pm.
En En’s mother told a call handler that her son had a high fever and purple spots on his skin, was continuously vomiting and seemed to be losing consciousness, the phone records showed.
The hospital said the boy died of brain stem encephalitis resulting from septicemia that was triggered by COVID-19.
His condition deteriorated rapidly after he developed severe symptoms, it said.
Medical authorities have not determined whether the duration between the phone call and his arrival at the hospital influenced his chances of survival.
In August, Lin filed claims for compensation with the city government, the fire department and the health department, in an attempt to force them to “admit the mistakes” they made in handling the ambulance request.
Lin demanded a symbolic NT$1 in compensation from each, but his requests were rejected.
In a statement in September, city authorities said the requests were rejected because the agencies involved made every effort to save En En’s life in accordance with epidemic control protocols.
None of them acted negligently, they said.
On Friday, Lin said the city government could have told him what truly happened on April 14, but it instead forced him to “take the long road” and file a lawsuit.
“The New Taipei City government has been trying to cover up the truth,” Lin said. “The case could drag on for a long time in court.”
Lin said he feels “indignant and angry” because it remains unclear if and when the truth would ever come out.
In the lawsuit, Lin also demanded NT$1 in compensation from each of the three government agencies.
Chen Yu-hsin (陳又新), one of Lin’s attorneys, said the main reason for the delayed dispatch was a city government policy requiring that a hospital bed be confirmed before an ambulance could be dispatched to a COVID-19 case.
That policy was not in line with guidelines set by the CECC, Chen said.
If the city government wanted to act on its own rather than in line with the guidelines, it should have had mechanisms in place to ensure effective communication between the fire and health departments, he said.
“There was gross negligence in handling ambulance dispatches, and the New Taipei City government should be held responsible,” Chen said.
New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said he respected Lin’s decision to go to court.
The city government would cooperate with the judicial proceedings, he added.
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