Former Department of Health minister Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁) has been appointed superintendent of Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH), the Veterans Affairs Commission late on Thursday.
The Executive Yuan had approved Lin’s appointment, the commission added in a press release.
Lin, who will be the first-ever medical professional to head TVGH who has not previously worked at the 50-year-old facility, is scheduled to assume his new post on Jan. 16, the commission said.
During a brief interview, Lin said he knows some TVGH staff are unhappy about his appointment as they consider him an outsider.
He said, however, that he has mentally prepared himself for the job and would do his utmost to be a good leader and win over the hearts and minds of his new colleagues.
Lin also denied criticism from TVGH sources that his appointment was “political payback.”
One TVGH doctor said that all four of the deputy superintendents have worked at the hospital for more than 30 years and all have great medical expertise and administrative experience. Lin’s appointment “is really hurting TVGH morale,” he said.
Some friends of Lin’s have also expressed concern that he would have difficulty running the hospital, especially for the first couple of months.
Lin resigned as minister in September to take responsibility for the Department of Health’s inept handling of the controversy over food imports from China tainted with melamine.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
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