Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was yesterday returned to Taipei Prison after receiving medical treatment at a hospital in Taoyuan County.
Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, was granted a temporary release from Taipei Prison on March 6 for a medical checkup at Taoyuan General Hospital. Chen was found to be suffering from acute coronary syndrome and underwent a cardiac catheterization on Thursday.
Taipei Prison arranged for Chen to stay at the hospital for seven days.
Photo: CNA
After receiving a computed tomography scan in the morning, at 11:35am, Chen was escorted to a van that took him back to Taipei Prison.
Supporters of the former president momentarily blocked the road and prevented the van from moving, but they were soon removed by police officials.
Chen’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators Mark Chen (陳唐山), Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) and Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) visited the former president in hospital.
Chen Chi-mai told reporters that Chen Shui-bian’s prison conditions were bad for the former president’s health. His physical condition and memory were deteriorating, Chen Chi-mai said, adding that DPP legislators had demanded that Taipei Prison improve the conditions.
They also requested that Chen Shui-bian be allowed to leave the prison and stay in the hospital for further medical treatment.
Chen Chih-chung said doctors suggested more exercise and a better diet for his father.
The Ministry of Justice said all inmates, including Chen Shui-bian, are confined in 4.56m2 cells and are allowed 30 minutes of outdoor activities a day, and it denies allegations that the former president is being treated poorly.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,