China Medical University Hospital (CMUH) on Saturday said that a letter published in The Lancet this month by its doctors about Taiwan’s healthcare system being “on the brink of systemic collapse” contained factual errors.
The Taichung-based hospital in a statement said that it identified multiple mistakes in a letter authored by two of its doctors that was published in volume 405 of the renowned medical journal.
The hospital said that the doctors were “deeply apologetic” over the erroneous content and have formally requested that The Lancet publish a correction.
Photo: CNA
According to the hospital, the letter written by Li Jing-xing (李景行) and Hsu Shu-bai (許漱白) inaccurately stated that Taiwan’s COVID-19 hospitalization fatality rate was 58.2 percent.
The hospital said the figure was a misreading of a study by Chang Gung Memorial Hospital published this year in Infection and Drug Resistance, which found that 58.2 percent of critically ill COVID-19 patients requiring intubation were infected with the Omicron variant.
The letter erroneously reported that Taiwan had 62 nurses per 10,000 people in 2021, when the actual number was 78 nurses per 10,000 people, CMUH said.
It also said a supporting document meant to illustrate the healthcare system’s interconnectedness was mistakenly replaced with the wrong file.
The errors caused unnecessary confusion among Taiwan’s medical community, and the authors had compiled a detailed list of mistakes for correction, CMUH said.
The hospital emphasized that the government has prioritized addressing healthcare system strain in the post-pandemic era, with the Ministry of Health and Welfare holding multiple meetings to coordinate response strategies.
It added that the National Health Insurance system has long provided “exceptionally high standards of treatment” and remains a model for other countries.
On Saturday, Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) criticized the letter, saying that using incorrect statistics to attack Taiwan’s health system was “deeply unfair” to medical workers.
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