The death of Chen Ching-chiu (陳靜秋), a head nurse at Taipei Municipal Hoping Hospital, has raised the nation's overall efforts in epidemic resistance to a state of war. Chen is just like a martyr who sacrificed her life for the country. The Taipei City Government gave Chen's family the highest level of compensation and proposed listing her as a heroine in the Taipei Municipal Martyrs' Shrine. The Legislative Yuan also passed a special SARS-prevention bill after three readings in just one day. All of these developments are owing to Chen's death. She has become a new totem.
While we extol Chen and worship her as a deity, has anyone stopped to think that she should not have died -- that a lack of adequate protection equipment and epidemic prevention contributed to her death?
When SARS started to spread across the globe in late March, all the reports pointed to high infection rates among medical workers. When two doctors -- an Italian who first discovered the virus and a physician at National Taiwan University Hospital who was the first doctor responsible for the diagnosis and treatment of SARS in Taiwan -- were infected with SARS, Chiu Shu-ti (邱淑女是), director of Taipei City Government's Department of Health, was busy fighting verbal battles with the central government.
Chiu said epidemic-prevention efforts had to be targeted at "preparing for the worst." She blamed the central government for not paying attention to endemic cases but only those cases brought into the country.
The end result is that the worst case of infection took place at Hoping Hospital, which is run by the Taipei City Government. The causes were a shortage of prevention equipment and negligence in prevention management. Hoping Hospital never "prepared for the worst." It has even come under suspicion of concealing the epidemic situation over a long period of time in order to keep a good track record.
After the situation finally spun of control, Hoping Hospital and the city's Bureau of Health held a joint press conference on April 24 and declared that "Taipei City's defense net against SARS has fallen apart and the epidemic situation has got out of control."
Consequently, not only was National Taiwan University Hospital's proud record of "three zeros" broken, but SARS marched into the community from the hospital as well. Some major community infections, such as the disaster caused by a Taipei Municipal Chien-kuo Senior High School student escaping from quarantine as well as children's mass infection in Wanhua District, are all related to Hoping Hospital.
Chen was the first sacrificial lamb to bad policy and faulty management. "Since the very beginning those people showing the most courage but lacking prevention equipment have been the first people to fall. It really makes us wonder whether the most courageous people should be the most unlucky," said Su Jui-chen (
Chen's death could have been prevented. It cannot be coverd over by the highest level of compensation and a place in a martyrs' shrine. Consolation money has no meaning to the deceased. Having a place in the martyrs' shrine only means a medal of honor, which is aimed at gratifying vanity.
When Napoleon set up the medal system, some people thought it was a play thing to fool people. Napoleon said the medal could be called a play thing or whatever because humanity is by nature ruled by it.
What needs to be explained is why Wu Kang-wen (
Who turned a blind eye to Chiu and encouraged her to question the central government and not accept the central government's orders? After Hoping Hospital committed a serious mistake, who gave Chiu a flower basket at Taipei City Council and decided the KMT and PFP should give up their interpellation in order to spare Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chiu embarrassment?
It is these people who must be responsible for the fall of front-line medical workers -- those people who have no standards of right and wrong or care nothing about epidemic prevention must be responsible for Chen's death.
Sun Ching-yu is a freelance columnist.
Translated by Grace Shaw
The first Donald Trump term was a boon for Taiwan. The administration regularized the arms sales process and enhanced bilateral ties. Taipei will not be so fortunate the second time around. Given recent events, Taiwan must proceed with the assumption that it cannot count on the United States to defend it — diplomatically or militarily — during the next four years. Early indications suggested otherwise. The nomination of Marco Rubio as US Secretary of State and the appointment of Mike Waltz as the national security advisor, both of whom have expressed full-throated support for Taiwan in the past, raised hopes that
Whether in terms of market commonality or resource similarity, South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co is the biggest competitor of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC). The two companies have agreed to set up factories in the US and are also recipients of subsidies from the US CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law by former US president Joe Biden. However, changes in the market competitiveness of the two companies clearly reveal the context behind TSMC’s investments in the US. As US semiconductor giant Intel Corp has faced continuous delays developing its advanced processes, the world’s two major wafer foundries, TSMC and
Authorities last week revoked the residency permit of a Chinese social media influencer surnamed Liu (劉), better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), who has more than 440,000 followers online and is living in Taiwan with a marriage-based residency permit, for her “reunification by force” comments. She was asked to leave the country in 10 days. The National Immigration Agency (NIA) on Tuesday last week announced the decision, citing the influencer’s several controversial public comments, including saying that “China does not need any other reason to reunify Taiwan with force” and “why is it [China] hesitant
We are witnessing a sea change in the government’s approach to China, from one of reasonable, low-key reluctance at rocking the boat to a collapse of pretense over and patience in Beijing’s willful intransigence. Finally, we are seeing a more common sense approach in the face of active shows of hostility from a foreign power. According to Article 2 of the 2020 Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), a “foreign hostile force” is defined as “countries, political entities or groups that are at war with or are engaged in a military standoff with the Republic of China [ROC]. The same stipulation applies to
RSS