The government is to establish a national mental healthcare command center to improve coordination with local agencies in managing social safety risks, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday.
Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said that Su made the announcement at a weekly Cabinet meeting, during which it approved draft amendments to the Mental Health Act (精神衛生法) proposed by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
The amendments would be sent to the Legislative Yuan for review.
Photo: Lee Hsin-fang, Taipei Times
Lo quoted Su as saying that the drafts echo the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, while answering public calls to improve the social safety net.
The drafts put more emphasis on interagency coordination for promoting mental healthcare, such as improving services for patients as well as social support systems, Su said.
The amendments aim to ensure that no one would be missed in the social safety net that involves local institutions, health agencies and other government bodies, he said.
One proposal would establish a national mental healthcare command center along with a platform for identifiying risks, which would be linked to local governments’ emergency response platforms, Su said.
Department of Mental and Oral Health Director-General Chen Li-chung (諶立中) said that the amendments’ would primarily focus on five aspects: promoting mental healthcare, creating more community-focused mental healthcare centers, improving the reporting mechanism for people with mental health issues and early risk control, requiring court approval for mandatory hospitalization, and improving the protection of patients’ rights.
The community-based centers would be established based on population size to ensure that people receive proper care in their neighborhoods, he said.
Under the changes, a hospital would have to obtain court approval before hospitalizing someone for mental health reasons without their consent, rather than just the approval of a committee convened by the health ministry, he said.
The court would engage judges, psychiatrists and patients’ rights advocates when reviewing a hospital’s application, while a mandatory hospitalization would be limited to one time for no more than 60 days, Chen said.
Institutions that have no license to provide mental healthcare would be banned from accommodating or treating mental health patients, to prevent agencies or groups from arbitrarily treating patients, he said.
The act would cover all residents in Taiwan, not just Republic of China citizens, he added.
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
TRAPPED IN CAMBODIA: A woman said that a job offer in Cambodia led to her being imprisoned in a fenced industrial park, where she was sold four times in a week An inter-ministerial task force has been set up by the Executive Yuan to tackle the issue of Taiwanese being lured to Cambodia with promises of high-paying jobs, but getting stuck there as targets of human trafficking, Executive Yuan spokesman Lo Ping-cheng (羅秉成) said on Thursday. Legislators, including Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) of the Democratic Progressive Party, told a news conference that a task force should be set up to address problems exposed by reports of Taiwanese being lured to Cambodia, Myanmar and other countries with promises of lucrative jobs before being forced into illegal work while being subject to abuse. Later in the
RSS