The controversy surrounding the appointment of former health minister Lin Fang-yue (林芳郁) as the next superintendent of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) continued after an advertisement appeared in a newspaper yesterday accusing government officials of “shaming the medical field.”
The Executive Yuan’s Veterans Affairs Commission announcement last week of Lin’s appointment as the next superintendent of TVGH will take effect on Jan. 16. However, the decision attracted criticism from current and retired hospital staff because Lin will be the hospital’s first superintendent not promoted from within the VGH system.
Yesterday’s advertisement on the front page of the Chinese-language United Daily News contained a letter criticizing President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Department of Health Minister Yeh Ching-chuan (葉金川) and Lin for “shaming the medical field” in Taiwan. The advertisement was anonymous, and ran under the name of “a group of humiliated medical staff.”
In the letter, Lin’s appointment was described as “shocking” and “out of the blue.” The letter also urged the Executive Yuan to retract its decision, or the hospital’s top management would advise against Lin’s inauguration.
Yeh denied the appointment was politically motivated and said, “President Ma was not involved in the decision-making.”
“The Executive Yuan has been planning to re-organize Taiwan’s medical facilities, including biomedical developments and medical resources in rural areas,” Yeh said. “Hospitals such as VGH and National Taiwan University Hospital are national hospitals, so there are many areas in which we need the VGH to help us out.”
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
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