Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) yesterday said the ministry was still focused on reducing the unnecessary use of nasogastric intubation, but it takes time to educate and train caregivers.
Chiu made the remark while speaking to reporters at the Legislative Yuan before attending a meeting of the Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee.
About 210,000 people were using a nasogastric tube in 2023, 65 percent of whom were aged 65 or older, while about half of the residents in nursing homes were using feeding tubes, National Health Insurance Administration (NHIA) data showed.
Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times
Since June 2022, the NHIA has been offering bonuses to caregivers that get people who have used a nasogastric tube for more than three months off the device to help them eat on their own.
When asked in January about the effectiveness of the bonuses, Chiu said the removal of nasogastric tubes would be listed as a key point of the Long-term Care Plan 3.0.
However, a newspaper yesterday reported that the number of people using a nasogastric tube has been increasing annually, with nearly 400,000 people having used the device last year.
The report quoted a specialist as saying that the health ministry had not launched any training programs for residential care facility staff or other supplementary measures to encourage the removal of nasogastric tubes.
In the past three years since the NHIA began offering bonuses, the number of people that met the criteria had risen, from 98 people in the second half of 2022 to 232 in 2023, 249 last year and 70 in the first three months of this year, the report said.
Regarding the report, Chiu said that caregivers need to learn that many people do not need nasogastric intubation.
For example, many caregivers believe that people who often choke while drinking water need nasogastric intubation, but in some cases, they might struggle to drink on their own because they have oral candidiasis (a fungal infection of the mouth), and after a few days of proper treatment can drink on their own, he said.
It takes professional training and attentiveness to help people avoid the discomfort of nasogastric intubation, he said, adding that the ministry’s goal is to ensure people are not forced to use it unless necessary.
The ministry has been continuously working on the issue, but the professional training takes time, as does alleviating family members’ and caregivers’ concerns, he said.
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS