A 10-year-old Mongolian girl named Enkhmend, who suffered from a malignant germ cell tumor of the brain and was unable to be treated in her country, is, after surgery at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, showing signs of recovery and can even walk on her own, the hospital said.
Chen Hsin-hong (陳信宏), a physician at the hospital’s Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery who performed the surgery, said Enkhmend was transferred to the hospital in July last year because she suffered from headaches, drowsiness and unconsciousness, and was diagnosed with a malignant germ cell tumor about the size of an egg in her brain.
When Enkhmend arrived at the hospital, she was unconscious and the team performed a 10-hour craniotomy — the surgical removal of part of the bone from the skull to expose the brain — to remove the tumor.
Chen said Enkhmend recovered and returned to Mongolia.
However, last month she was admitted to the hospital again due to meningitis. She was treated with antibiotics, had surgery to treat hydrocephalus and was discharged from the hospital last week.
Yesterday at the hospital, Enkhmend’s mother said they are grateful for what the hospital and Taiwan have done to help them.
Malignant germ cell tumors of the brain more commonly occur in children and the prevalence in Taiwan is about five times of that in Western nations, Chen said, adding that symptoms include headaches, unconsciousness, diabetes insipidus, blurred vision and weak limbs.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
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