Three DPP lawmakers with clinical-practice experience called for the restructuring of the country's medical system, perceiving a flaw within the existing framework that sparked off the SARS outbreak.
"The outbreak of the flu-like illness severely hit the country partially because of the long-time neglect of medical research and training at the infectious disease department," Chien Chiao-tung (
Chien, who held a press conference with his fellow DPP Legislators Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Friday, said that urgent reinforcement of infection technology is needed to halt the spreading disease.
All three lawmakers are experienced medical professionals.
The hospital management system must improve its training as well as aid for personnel at the infectious diseases department by doubling the manpower and improving clinical protection for personnel on duty, Chien, formerly a thoracic doctor and a hospital superintendent in Taichung County, said.
Chien explained that, "the infectious departments are unappreciated in most hospitals in civilized countries because modern society has been far removed from life-threatening epidemic transmissions following the development of more advanced medicines in the 21st century."
And this demonstrated that, before the pneumonic disease surfaced, hospital administrations tended to treat their infectious departments as secondary subdivisions with the minimum personnel, the least cost accounting and protective measures and even the poorest payment rules within the national health insurance service.
He said that hospitals around the country usually deploy only one doctor to the infectious department and the maximum nursing staff dispatched to the department is four.
"The outbreak of SARS undoubtedly created the harshest challenge to the infectious manpower reserve because of their lack of combat capability," Chien said.
The lawmakers advised enlisting the military forces to help fight the epidemic. The worsening infection was a warning that the civil medical system had been unable to win the battle against the rampant disease on its own, they said.
The battle against the SARS virus should be upgraded to a mission of biochemical war. Military hospitals should take over the command of centralized medical treatment and hospitalization, while dozens of the DOH-supervised hospitals around the country need to modify their roles in support of the leading general hospital, they said.
"The military medical forces must contribute to epidemic control with its high-speed mobilization capability and biochemistry training," Chien said.
They said the Tri-Service General Hospital of Taipei should mastermind the national SARS-prevention and cure scheme and be declared the centralized treatment base for all SARS patients and suspected cases.
The other 19 army hospitals and clinics scattered around the country can serve as preliminary bases for epidemic sampling tests and temporary centralized infirmaries for cases showing SARS-related symptoms.
Chen Chi-mai, formerly a doctor in charge at Chang Guan Memorial Hospital, demanded the speeding up of the recruitment of supplemental staff to relieve hard-pressed medical personnel. "The required quarantine for medical personnel having contact with SARS patients increased the workload of the limited amount of frontline doctors and nurses," he noted.
The administration should inaugurate standard operation procedures (SOP) for treatment of an epidemic, said Lai, who used to be a physician at National Cheng Kung University Hospital, stressing that modifying diagnostic procedures need to on while the government is pushing for a NT$50 billion special budget to curb the illness.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS