Over 200 migrant workers attended a free health check event staffed by medical personnel and volunteers from the Tzu Chi International Medical Association at Taipei Main Station yesterday.
The event offered preliminary health checks, including ultrasounds and dental examinations, as well as consultations in specialties such as orthopedics and gynecology, Ho Fang-tsun (何芳純), a Taipei City government official who helped organize the event, said.
Photo: CNA
Surya Dewi, a domestic worker from Indonesia who has lived in Taiwan for 14 years, said the event was "very helpful because sometimes we don't have time to go to a clinic."
The 51-year-old said she had her heart, teeth and eyes checked, adding that it was her first time attending the event.
Istiyani, a caregiver from Indonesia, said she received acupuncture after seeking help for lower back and hand pain caused by lifting the elderly person in her care.
"It doesn't hurt anymore," the Taoyuan-based worker, who has lived in Taiwan for eight years, said.
Ho said the office began cooperating with Tzu Chi in 2004, primarily because many of Taipei's roughly 50,000 migrant workers are live-in family caregivers with only one day off a month, making it difficult to seek medical treatment.
"Family caregivers look after the health of our people, and we also hope to look after the health of migrant workers," Ho said.
With more than 20,000 visits recorded since the program began and each event this year drawing more than 200 participants, Ho said the service does not end with the initial screening.
"At our previous session [in June], we found that one migrant worker had about eight or nine uterine fibroids," Ho said, "We followed up with her and helped her go to a major hospital for further examinations."
Yesterday’s event was the third of four planned for this year, with the final one set for Oct. 4, also at Taipei Main Station.
The service is open to migrant workers legally residing in Taiwan, including those employed outside Taipei, as long as they bring their Alien Resident Certificates.
McDonald’s Taiwan today said it has halted sales of its limited edition Sea Flavor Fried Shrimp Burger and its double-patty version, after the importer notified the company last night that the shrimp patties contained nitrofurans — a group of synthetic antibiotics — and their metabolites. Sales of the shrimp burgers were suspended nationwide at 10:30am today and customers who purchased them yesterday or in the early hours of this morning would be eligible for refunds, the company said, adding that more details would be announced within a week. McDonald’s Taiwan said it was notified last night that subsequent batch testing had found
Two Chinese suspected to have illegally entered Taiwan are being held incommunicado, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday, after a rubber boat was found north of the Port of Taipei last month. An angler late last month discovered a rubber boat on a beach in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), a member of the public wrote on Threads on Monday. The next day, the angler investigated the boat and discovered that it contained Chinese-made metal oil drums, toilet paper packaging with simplified Chinese characters, an empty soda bottle sold in China and three life jackets, the post said. The fisher reported
A delivery worker alliance and a labor union have filed criminal complaints against Uber Technologies Inc and Uber Eats Taiwan executives, accusing them of underpaying workers who handle multiple deliveries. The complaints, filed yesterday with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, target Uber Technologies CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber Eats Taiwan chairwoman Michelle Georgette Parker, the platform's Taiwan general manager and several local corporate representatives. The National Delivery Industry Union and an alliance promoting Taiwan food delivery industry rights accused Uber Eats of knowingly adopting an unlawful payment formula for so-called "stacked orders," in which a courier delivers two or more orders in a
STRAIT AUTHORITY: The Maritime and Port Bureau said that it had implemented measures ahead of the storm’s arrival and no incidents had occurred under its watch China’s use of typhoon disaster prevention as a pretext to exercise traffic control over vessels in the Taiwan Strait was unacceptable, the Maritime and Port Bureau said in a statement on Monday. The bureau issued the statement after China’s Guangdong Maritime Safety Administration on Thursday last week unilaterally said that it would enforce traffic controls over northbound vessels in the Taiwan Strait due to Typhoon Dolphin. The bureau said that following the Chinese announcement, it had immediately issued maritime safety notices via coastal radio and maritime safety centers to inform vessels operating near Taiwan that the Taiwan Strait is international waters. Under the
RSS