In light of increasing lawsuits filed against physicians and the resultant rise in defensive medicine, the Legislative Yuan yesterday approved an amendment to the Medical Act (醫療法) which sets out the conditions for physicians to face criminal charges in medical disputes.
The amendment was made to Article 82 of the act, which formerly stated that “medical facilities and its paramedics should compensate for any harm they cause a patient in the course of performing their duties on the condition that the harm was intentional or a result of negligence.”
The amended article reads: “Paramedics who injure or kill a patient in the course of providing medical treatment due to negligence over items that require attention and nonclinical judgements face criminal liabilities.”
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“The two aforementioned violations should be determined after factoring in the branch of medicine practiced, the prevalent medical practice, medical skills, the condition of medical equipment used and work conditions at the time and place of the incident, as well as the urgency of treatment,” it says.
Medical facilities that harm a patient due to negligence should compensate the patient, it stipulates.
Lawmakers across party lines also lent support to two supplementary resolutions, proposed by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), that require the Ministry of Health and Welfare to submit a draft bill before Jan. 31 that defines rules governing medical disputes, and to assist the central government in establishing unified reporting and troubleshooting systems for such disputes.
DPP Legislator Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀), who led the legislation, said the amendment was not meant to protect doctors or decriminalize negligence, but to refine the article.
The change would encourage doctors to take risks when attempting to save lives, since it prevents patients or their families who want to receive monetary compensation under the Civil Code from threatening their physician with criminal charges, Lin said.
Citing statistics compiled by the ministry, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Yi-min (陳宜民) said the number of lawsuits filed against paramedics in 2014 was 3.5 times the number three decades ago: 146 per year between 1987 and 1990, and 534 from 2011 to 2014.
This has discouraged many physicians from taking up high-risk branches of medicine, resulting in a brain drain in these fields, he said.
However, New Power Party Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said the amendment failed to address the root cause of medical disputes.
He said that while he could relate to the premise, he doubted whether defining circumstances under which doctors face criminal liabilities would help decrease the number of lawsuits against doctors.
Now that legal action by patients is more likely to come in the form of civil lawsuits, compensation could be demanded of doctors like a “contract,” in which a party accuses another of “failing to perform an obligation,” Huang said.
“Whether my predictions will come true, I believe that time will tell,” he added.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
EVA Air is prohibiting the use of portable chargers on board all flights starting from Saturday, while China Airlines is advising passengers not to use them, following the lead of South Korean airlines. Current regulations prohibit portable chargers and lithium batteries from check-in luggage and require them to be properly packed in carry-on baggage, EVA Air said. To improve onboard safety, portable chargers and spare lithium batteries would be prohibited from use on all fights starting on Saturday, it said. Passengers are advised to fully charge electronic devices before boarding and use the AC and USB charging outlets at their seat, it said. South
WAR SIMULATION: The developers of the board game ‘2045’ consulted experts and analysts, and made maps based on real-life Chinese People’s Liberation Army exercises To stop invading Chinese forces seizing Taiwan, board gamer Ruth Zhong chooses the nuclear option: Dropping an atomic bomb on Taipei to secure the nation’s freedom and her victory. The Taiwanese board game 2045 is a zero-sum contest of military strategy and individual self-interest that puts players on the front lines of a simulated Chinese attack. Their battlefield game tactics would determine the theoretical future of Taiwan, which in the real world faces the constant threat of a Chinese invasion. “The most interesting part of this game is that you have to make continuous decisions based on the evolving situation,
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
RSS