Dozens of doctors and medical students in Taipei yesterday delivered a petition signed by netizens to the Taiwan Medical Association urging Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Su Ching-chuan (蘇清泉) to resign as the association’s chairman and apologize to the public over recent remarks.
Among the group were members of the Taiwan Medical Alliance for Labor Justice and Patient Safety — an organization founded in 2012 by a group of doctors dedicated to reforming the nation’s healthcare system — including Shih Jin-chung (施景中), an attending physician at National Taiwan University Hospital’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Fang Jui-wen (方瑞雯), a doctor at Taipei Municipal Gan-Dau Hospital’s Division of Family Medicine; and Chiayi Chang Gung Memorial Hospital physician Tony Hsu (許宏志).
They chanted the slogan: “Politicians stay away from the medical community, doctors focus on saving lives,” before delivering the letter, addressed to Su, to association secretary-general Tsai Ming-chung (蔡明忠).
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“While it is the right of people to elect their president, we, as doctors, do not have a say in how the association chooses its chairman and board members. That is why only a few of them are reputed medical practitioners ... and why the association has been used as a bargaining chip for political interests,” Shih said outside the association headquarters in Daan District (大安).
Shih said Su had already courted controversy before he accused the university hospital on Thursday last week of having given high doses of phentolamine and heparin to 26 trauma patients in the past 15 years to trick district prosecutors into issuing death certificates for potential organ donors.
“When the government proposed an increase to the tobacco health and welfare surcharge [in March], Su opposed the plan, saying that smoking was one of the few pleasures left for lower-middle-class people and that the government should not take that away from them,” Shih said. “When emergency care doctors were beaten by patients’ parents’ families, Su said it must have been because the doctors were indifferent or idiotic.”
Shih said the physician-turned-KMT lawmaker stirred up further controversy by saying that problematic oils involved in a seemingly endless string of cooking oil scandals in recent months were safe to eat if they met government standards.
“Nearly 70 percent of the 47,000 people who have signed the online petition launched on Thursday last week are medical personnel,” Shih said. “If Su refuses to step down as chairman voluntarily, we will launch a movement to impeach him instead.”
Fang said Su’s accusations have hurt not only people who specialize in organ procurement and transplants, but also the families of organ donors, who might be tormented by questions over whether it was their decision to donate their loved ones’ organs that led to their death.
“Taiwan already faces a difficult road to facilitate organ procurement. We urge everyone to cherish the country’s hard-earned achievements in the field rather than tarnishing them,” Fang said.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Organ Registry and Sharing Center chairman Lee Po-chang (李伯璋) yesterday said he is relieved that Su’s accusations have led to a noticeable increase in the number of people signing up to be organ donors, as opposed to a decrease as he had feared.
Lee said that from August to last month, an average of 190 people per month registered as organ donors, while about nine people applied to have their names removed from the registry in each month.
“However, since the beginning of this month, 426 people have added their names to the organ donation register, including 233 from Thursday last week through Monday,” Lee said, adding that the center has received only 16 applications for removal from the registry in the same period.
“The trend indicates that Taiwanese are aware that [Su’s accusations] were motivated merely by the [nine-in-one] elections and that they still have faith in the nation’s organ donation system,” he said.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
Taiwanese barista Xie Yi-chen (謝溢宸) recently triumphed at the 2024 World Coffee Championships, taking home 1st place in the World Latte Art category. Xie, 28, impressed the judges in the final round with patterns of a whale, a moose, and a dragon in the three-day competition that took place in Copenhagen, Denmark from June 27-29, clinching the title of latte art world champion during his first time representing Taiwan on the world stage. At a press conference held by the Taiwan Coffee Association on Thursday, Xie said that creating latte art gives him a tremendous feeling of achievement. Speaking about his entries in
The annual Taipei Summer Festival, which starts today, is to tone down its fireworks displays, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said on Monday. Fireworks displays are to be held at the riverside site in Datong District’s (大同) Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area on four days at this year’s festival, with the first today, and then on Wednesday next week, July 31 and Aug. 10, the department said. There were eight displays last year, with the reduction aimed at minimizing inconvenience to local residents, it said. The first three shows, which are all on Wednesdays, are to last for five minutes, while the final
EYE ON MAYORS: The DPP would file a complaint with the Control Yuan against Ko and Chiang over their handling of reports of abuse at a preschool in the city The Taipei City Government’s belated response under Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) and his predecessor, Taiwan People’s Party Chairman Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), to alleged child sex abuse at a kindergarten resulted in more children being victimized, two Taipei City Councilors said yesterday. A Taipei preschool teacher has been charged with sexually abusing six children from 2021 to last year at a school registered to his mother. Prosecutors are reportedly considering additional charges amid a wave of new accusations allegedly linking the suspect to 20 other abused children and the discovery at his residence of more than 600 sexually explicit videos featuring minors. The