Taiwan Statebuilding Party Legislator Chen Po-wei (陳柏惟) yesterday asked Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to offer monetary compensation to medical personnel who have to forgo overseas travel due to a travel ban amid a COVID-19 outbreak.
There has been an increase in the workload of medical personnel since the novel coronavirus reached Taiwan, and they have been asked not to travel to countries and regions affected by the virus, Chen said at a question-and-answer session at the Legislative Yuan.
Medical personnel live in fear of contracting the virus and have come under immense pressure from some members of the public, he said, adding that some couriers refuse to deliver food to hospitals.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Chen asked Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) how many medical personnel have been placed under travel restrictions, how much the government plans to compensate them daily and how the Ministry of Health and Welfare intends to spend its proposed NT$16.9 billion (US$561.7 million) slice of a NT$60 billion special budget for containing the epidemic and bailing out affected sectors.
About 320,000 medical personnel, including physicians, nurses and pharmacists, have been asked not to travel to countries and regions affected by the coronavirus, Chen Shih-chung said, adding that all of them would be compensated.
The ministry has set aside NT$1.8 billion for the research and development of drugs to treat COVID-19, NT$2 billion for compensating medical personnel and NT$4 billion to make up for possible shortfalls in these expenses, he added.
Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics Minister Chu Tzer-ming (朱澤民) said that of the personnel treating COVID-19 patients, physicians would receive a daily subsidy of NT$10,000, nurses NT$5,000 per day and administrative workers NT$1,500.
Chen Po-wei said that the outbreak has reaffirmed the nation’s sovereignty, as some Taiwanese entertainers who had been Chinese “lapdogs” have suddenly become “proud Taiwanese,” adding that people who view this as a positive development should thank medical personnel combating the epidemic.
Su said that the government imposed the travel restrictions not because it wants medical personnel to work longer, but because 67 nations have been affected by the coronavirus.
The government would reimburse medical personnel for any losses they incur as a result of the travel restrictions, including any fees that have to be forfeited, he said.
International observers had predicted that Taiwan would be the second-most affected nation from COVID-19 after China, but the epidemic has been brought under control domestically, Su said, thanking all medical personnel who have dedicated themselves to containing the virus.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Finance and other concerned agencies would fine tune subsidy and compensation rules in the interests of medical personnel, he said.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS