In the case of Kai Kai (剴剴) — a one-year-old boy who died, allegedly from abuse by a Taipei nanny surnamed Liu (劉) — a Child Welfare League Foundation (兒福聯盟) social worker was handcuffed and detained by police for falsifying home visit records and failing to detect the abuse at an early stage.
Meanwhile, many are wondering why the Taipei City Government’s Department of Health did not include the boy in the government’s Specialized Doctor Child Care Program.
The handling of the case has caused panic among medical groups online, with doctors worried that they could also be held accountable for failing to detect child abuse cases in a timely manner. Some are planning to withdraw from the program.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare launched the Specialized Doctor Child Care Pilot Program in 2020. The ministry invited health bureaus throughout the nation to incorporate a “list of children under the age of three in high-risk and vulnerable families” provided by social care bureaus with their designated cases, and assigned them to specialized doctors who would regularly monitor the children’s health and development.
Why was Kai Kai not included in the program? Taipei City’s Health and Social Welfare departments should provide an explanation.
Had he been included, the abuse might have been detected at an early stage through home visits stipulated in the doctor care plan.
However, even if Kai Kai was included in the specialized doctor program, would the tragedy have been avoided?
It is doubtful, because apart from meeting with the children in clinics and making phone calls to encourage those looking after them to send them for vaccinations and regular health check-ups, the program only has home visits for high-risk children once or twice a year.
During such visits, doctors might not necessarily be able to detect child abuse unless the child’s health is extremely poor or they have new or old wounds that cannot be reasonably explained during a medical examination. Doctors are naturally obliged to report a suspected case of child abuse to health or social bureaus.
However, abused children are usually not taken to a hospital by abusive nannies or parents, so how can such cases be detected?
Instead of doctors, perhaps neighbors are more likely to notice whether a child is abused. Therefore, communities should be encouraged to report cases of child abuse to the police.
Otherwise, doctors might withdraw from the program if they are worried about being handcuffed someday, just like the Child Welfare League Foundation social worker — despite the fact that they were actually being investigated for forging home visit records.
Lin Yung-zen is president of the Taiwan Primary Care Association and a supervisor of the Taiwan Pediatric Association.
Translated by Eddy Chang
The gutting of Voice of America (VOA) and Radio Free Asia (RFA) by US President Donald Trump’s administration poses a serious threat to the global voice of freedom, particularly for those living under authoritarian regimes such as China. The US — hailed as the model of liberal democracy — has the moral responsibility to uphold the values it champions. In undermining these institutions, the US risks diminishing its “soft power,” a pivotal pillar of its global influence. VOA Tibetan and RFA Tibetan played an enormous role in promoting the strong image of the US in and outside Tibet. On VOA Tibetan,
Sung Chien-liang (宋建樑), the leader of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) efforts to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lee Kun-cheng (李坤城), caused a national outrage and drew diplomatic condemnation on Tuesday after he arrived at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office dressed in a Nazi uniform. Sung performed a Nazi salute and carried a copy of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf as he arrived to be questioned over allegations of signature forgery in the recall petition. The KMT’s response to the incident has shown a striking lack of contrition and decency. Rather than apologizing and distancing itself from Sung’s actions,
US President Trump weighed into the state of America’s semiconductor manufacturing when he declared, “They [Taiwan] stole it from us. They took it from us, and I don’t blame them. I give them credit.” At a prior White House event President Trump hosted TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家), head of the world’s largest and most advanced chip manufacturer, to announce a commitment to invest US$100 billion in America. The president then shifted his previously critical rhetoric on Taiwan and put off tariffs on its chips. Now we learn that the Trump Administration is conducting a “trade investigation” on semiconductors which
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
RSS