Taiwan has not received an invitation to attend the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) this year, Minister of Health and Welfare Hsueh Jui-yuan (薛瑞元) said yesterday.
Hopefully, friendly countries can help the nation participate in international events to counter “unfair treatment.”
The WHA, the WHO’s decisionmaking body, is scheduled to meet from May 21 to 30 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Photo: AP
Hsueh wrote two opinion editorials published last week in the US media outlet The Diplomat and Swedish newspaper Nerikes Allehanda, regarding Taiwan’s efforts in global public health and its ability to contribute further.
His goal in writing the articles was to help obtain support from like-minded countries to receive an invitation to the WHA, Hsueh said.
“Taiwan is an indispensable part of the global public health system and many countries know it, but Taiwan is being neglected by the WHO, which is unfair treatment,” Hsueh said.
“We hope that through the help of friendly countries, Taiwan can receive more opportunities to participate internationally,” he added.
Hsueh is scheduled to lead a delegation to Geneva on May 19 to express the government’s desire to join the WHA as an observer, as well to participate in WHO meetings, mechanisms and activities.
The delegation is expected to include former National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) president Liang Kung-yee (梁賡義), NHRI president Sytwu Huey-kang (司徒惠康), National Health Insurance Administration director-general Shih Chung-liang (石崇良), and Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞).
Meanwhile yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a promotional video titled The Doctor is In, presenting Taiwan’s contributions to global public health, and calling for Taiwan’s inclusion in this year’s WHA and WHO mechanisms.
The video cited examples of Taiwan’s contributions, including donations to hospitals in Ukraine, as well as centers for pediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery.
The video shows that the Taiwan International Healthcare Training Center has trained more than 2,000 healthcare professionals from 77 countries in the past 20 years.
It also shows that Taiwan has been providing several medical and technical services to African countries since the 1950s, helping its friends and allies maintain maternal and child health, and reducing the continent’s early neonatal mortality rate by 1 percent.
The words “Taiwan Can Help” and “Let Taiwan Help” are shown at the end of the video.
The video has been subtitled in several languages and is available on the ministry’s YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Instagram and Twitter accounts, the foreign ministry said, adding that people are encouraged to share it with the world.
Separately, the Hungarian Momentum Movement party last month sent a letter to the WHO calling for Taiwan’s participation in the WHA, marking the first time a Hungarian political party has made such a statement without objection.
Momentum, which was formed in 2016 and became a political party in 2017, won seats in the Hungarian National Assembly for the first time in April last year. It is now the nation’s second-largest opposition party with 10 seats out of 199.
In a statement announcing the letter on Friday last week, the party called for Taiwan’s membership in the WHO, and for the nation to be invited as an observer during the upcoming WHA.
Additional reporting by CNA
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