Taiwan hospitals, surgeons, physicians
, Medical Doctors       
           
  this site's world No. 1 in  2020~24,  2017~19 2016,  2015, 2014, 2013 2010~12      Top  since 1998  
 


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Taiwan

       Taiwan hospitals  not included top list

National Insurance is in "a state of diseases"

n Taiwan's hospital in 2024 Newsweek & Statista "World's Best Hospitals"

World's Best Hospitals 2024
by Newsweek
comparison among Asia's countries

newsweek.com/rankings/worlds-best-hospitals-2024

world rank hospital country
9 Sheba Medical center Israel
11 Singapore General Hospital Singapore
18 The Univ. of Tokyo Hospital Japan
22 Asan Medical center S. Korea
24 St. Luke's Int'l Hospital Japan
34 Samsung Medical Center S. Korea
40 Severance Hospital Yonsei Univ. S. Korea
43 Seoul National Univ. Hospital S. Korea
45 Kameda Medical Center Japan
56 Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Australia
64 Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical center Israel
69 Kyushu Univ. Hospital Japan
79 National Univ. Hospital Singapore
81 Seoul National Univ. - Bundang Hospital S. Korea
86 Nagoya Univ. Hospital Japan
88 Center Hospital of the National Center for Global Health & medicine Japan
94 Gangnam Severance Hospital - Yonsei Univ. S. Korea
96 Kyoto Univ. Hospital Japan
97 The Alfred Australia
102 Royal Melbourne Hospital Parkville Australia
104 The Catholic Univ. Korea Seoul St. Mary's Hospital S. Korea
110 Tan Tock Seng Hospital Singapore
111 Keio Univ. Hospital Japan
113 All India Institute of Medical Science Delhi India
116 Mount Elizabeth - Orchard Singapore
120 Ajou Univ. Hospital S. Korea
130 Bumrungrad Int'l Hospital Thailand
134 Royal North Shore Hospital Australia
148 Inha Univ. Hospital S. Korea
152 Kangnuk Samsung Hospital S. Korea
156 Changi General (CGH) Singapore
158 Rabin Medical Center Israel
160 Korea Univ. Anam Hospital S. Korea
166 Medanta The Medicity India
167 Gleneagles Hospital Singapore
168 Toranomon Hospital Japan
170 The Cathilic Univ. Korea Yeouido St. Mary's Hospital S. Korea
172 Osaka Univ. Hospital Japan
177 Kurashiki Central Hospital Japan
186 Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi UAE
188 Juntendo Univ. Hospital Japan
189 St Vincent's Hospital Fitzroy Australia
201 Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Australia
206 Hokkaido Univ. Hospital Japan
208 KyungHee Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
212 Japanese Red Cross Medical center Japan
214 Chung-Ang Univ. Hospital S. Korea
218 Taipei Veterans General 台北榮總 Taiwan 台灣
222 Konkuk Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
223 Gleneagles Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
224 Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital Japan
225 Ewha Womans Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
229 King Faisal Specialist Hospital (KFSH&RC) Saudi Arabia
233 Sunway Medical Center Malaysia
235 Daegu Catholic Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
246 PGIMER - Postgraduate Institute Medical Education and Research India

 

comparison among Asian countries
Country/Ranks No.1~100 No.101~200 No.201~250 Total
Japan 7 5 3 15
S. Korea 6 6 5 17
Israel 2 1   3
Singapore 2 4   6
Australia 2 4   6
India   2 1 3
Thailand   1   1
UAE   1   1
Malaysia     2 2
Taiwan 台灣     1 1
Saudi Arabia     1 1
Total 19 24 13 56
China, HK not included in survey
11 hospitals in Asia & Pacific were under survey

 

Newsweek  2024   top 25 Taiwan hospitals
newsweek.com/rankings/worlds-best-hospitals-2024/taiwan

rank

hospitals

2024 score

2023 score, rank

1 Taipei Veterans General Hospital台北榮總 93.4% 97.05, No.2
2 NTU Hospital台大醫院 93.28 97.2%, No.1
3 Linkou Chang Gung Mem. 林口長庚 84.32 82.36, No.6
4 Taichung Veterans General 台中榮總 83.91 80.44, No.8
5 Kaoshiung Chang Gung Mem 高雄長庚 83.11 88.64
6 China Medical Univ. Hospital中國醫藥大學醫 82.55 82.58
7 Mackay Mem. Hospital馬偕 81.30 78.62
8 National Cheng Kung Univ. Hospital成大 81.20 82.72
9 Kaohsiung Medical Univ. Chung-Ho Mem. Hospital高雄醫大 78.81 76.30, No.16
10 Taoyuan Chang Gung Mem. Hospital 78.78 77.95
11 Taipei Tzu Chi General Hospital -  New Tpe新北慈濟 78.10 77.60
12 Taipei Chang Gung Mem. Hospital桃園長庚 77.90 80.76, No.7
13 Cathay General Hospital國泰醫院 77.69 79.16
14 Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital高雄榮總 77.33 78.97
15 Hualin Tzu Chi General Hospital花蓮慈濟 77.10 74.99, No.19
16 China Medical Univ. Beigang Hospital中國醫大北港分院 76.86 not top 20
17 Taipei Medical Univ. Hospital台北醫大 76.5 not top 20
18 NTU Hospital Yunlin台大雲林分院 75.94 not top 20
19 Far Eastern Mem. Hospital遠東 75.61 not top 20
20 Chung Shan Medical Univ. Hospital - Taichung中山醫大 75.30 75.58
21 Tri-Service General Hospital- Songshan三軍總醫 74.10 78.25, No.12
22 Taipei Municipal Wangfang Hospital萬芳 73.84 not top 20
23 Chi Mei Medical Center - Tainan奇美 73.69 76.61, No.15
24 Cathay General Hospital, Sijhih國泰 分院 73.51 not top 20
25 Cathay General Hospital, Hsinchu國泰新竹 73.11 not top 20

                

News /  ☉ United Daily (2023-8-25): Taiwan's hospitals reject cancer patients being hospitalized under the status of National Health Insurance to avoid the authority turning down hospital's application for payment by the strategy of a sum and canceling after confirming.  Many patients faced with the dilemma of being unable to afford expensive cancer medicines because the policy of private insurance companies does not cover out-of-pocket medicine expenses.  udn.com/news/story/7266/7393297?from=redpush

nTaiwan ranks No. 249 in top 250 World's Best Hospitals by Newsweek and Statista in 2023 

 

Opinion - Why is Taiwan behind ?

(1) Taiwan got highest CovID death rate in Asia and entire world again and again.
/  "Medicine should be prescribed but not prescribed, medicine should be taken but not taken",  bad record of "failure to administer CovID remedy/medicine in time" Bloomberg, 2021-7-25: Taiwan's medical care system is also run on a tight budget to keep costs affordable Newsweek: These are challenging times for hospitals. COVID-19 put unprecedented stress on health systems.

(2) Not patient-centered /  not easy to register clinic, 2-5 minutes for clinic diagnosis,
7-10 waiting days in emergency room to be hospitalized, shortage of some excellent medicines and newest equipments, the number of MDs per 10000 is very low, turnover rate of the nurses is high, some chronic disease items' score very low, poor internationalization, national health insurance ceiling issue, not to value privacy, medical disputes,  not enough resource for rural patients and the disadvantaged... for details pls. read the web-pages below

 

Newsweek: Among the hallmarks of great hospitals, however, are not just first-class care, first-class research and first-class innovation. The very best institutions also share another quality: consistency. The world's best hospitals consistently attract the best people and provide the best outcomes for patients as well as the most important new therapies and research.

 

World's Best Hospitals 2023
by Newsweek
comparison among Asia's countries

newsweek.com/rankings/worlds-best-hospitals-2023

Asia's rank

country

total number of top 250  hospitals

1 Japan 18
2 S. Korea 18
3 Australia 7
4 Singapore 5
5 Israel 3
6 India 3
7 Thailand 1
8 UAE 1
9 Taiwan 1
Asia's China, etc are not included in survey list - 28 countries
Taiwan's NTU Hospital ranks world no. 249, behind selected hospitals of Thai. and UAE 

 

World's Best Hospitals 2023
by Newsweek
comparison among Asia's countries

newsweek.com/rankings/worlds-best-hospitals-2023

world rank hospital country
9 Singapore General Hospital Singapore
11 Sheba Medical center Israel
17 The Univ. of Tokyo Hospital Japan
28 St. Luke's Int'l Hospital Japan
29 Asan Medical center S. Korea
40 Samsung Medical Center S. Korea
47 Kameda Medical Center Japan
49 Seoul National Univ. Hospital S. Korea
66 Royal Prince Alfred Hospital Australia
67 Severance Hospital Yonsei Univ. S. Korea
68 Kyushu Univ. Hospital Japan
69 Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical center Israel
73 Center Hospital of the National Center for Global Health & medicine Japan
91 The Catholic Univ. Korea Seoul St. Mary's Hospital S. Korea
93 Seoul National Univ. - Bundang Hospital S. Korea
96 National Univ. Hospital Singapore
98 The Alfred Australia
105 Mount Elizabeth - Orchard Singapore
108 Keio Univ. Hospital Japan
112 Kyoto Univ. Hospital Japan
118 Nagoya Univ. Hospital Japan
119 Ajou Univ. Hospital S. Korea
122 All India Institute of Medical Science Delhi India
130 Tan Tock Seng Hospital Singapore
133 Gangnam Severance Hospital - Yonsei Univ. S. Korea
135 Gleneagles Hospital Singapore
140 Kangnuk Samsung Hospital S. Korea
142 The Cathilic Univ. Korea Yeouido St. Mary's Hospital S. Korea
144 Korea Univ. Anam Hospital S. Korea
150 Royal North Shore Hospital Australia
163 Medanta The Medicity India
168 Kurashiki Central Hospital Japan
175 Toranomon Hospital Japan
178 Rabin Medical Center Israel
181 Juntendo Univ. Hospital Japan
182 Bumrungrad Int'l Hospital Thailand
188 Royal Melbourne Hospital Parkville Australia
190 Japanese Red Cross Medical center Japan
190 Chung-Ang Univ. Hospital S. Korea
192 Inha Univ. Hospital S. Korea
196 Osaka Univ. Hospital Japan
199 Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi UAE
202 Hokkaido Univ. Hospital Japan
202 Ewha Womans Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
207 Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital Australia
208 St Vincent's Hospital Fitzroy Australia
212 Kobe City Medical Center General Hospital Japan
222 Jikei Univ. Hospital Japan
224 Gold Coast Univ. Hospital Australia
229 KyungHee Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
233 Konkuk Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
242 Kyorin Univ. Hospital Japan
243 Daegu Catholic Univ. Medical Center S. Korea
246 Yokohama Municipal Citizen's Hospital Japan
247 Chungnam National Univ. Hospital S. Korea
249 National Taiwan Univ. Hospital Taiwan
250 Apollo Hospital Chennai India
 

 

Top 20 Taiwan's hospitals by Newsweek  2023
newsweek.com/rankings/worlds-best-hospitals-2023

Taiwan's rank

top 20 Taiwan's hospitals

score

1 NTU Hospital 97.2%
2 Taipei Veterans General Hospital 97.05
3 Kaoshiung Chang Gung Mem Hospital 88.64
4 National Cheng Hung Univ. Hospital 82.72
5 China Medical Univ. Hospital 82.58
6 Linkou Chang Gung Mem. Hospital 82.36
7 Taipei Chang Gung Mem. Hospital 80.76
8 Taichung Veterans Genral Hospital 80.44
9 Cathay General Hospital 79.16
10 Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital 78.97
11 Mackay Mem. Hospital 78.62
12 Tri-Service General Hospital- Songshan 78.25
13 Taoyuan Chang Gung Mem. Hospital 77.95
14 Taipei Tzu Chi General Hospital -  New Tpe 77.60
15 Chi Mei Medical Center - Tainan 76.61
16 Kaohsiung Medical Univ. Chung-Ho Mem. Hospita; 76.30
17 Chung Shan Medical Univ. Hospital - Taichung 75.58
18 Taipei Municipal Wangfang Hospital 75.23
19 Hualin Tzu Chi General Hospital 74.99
20 Chiayi Chang Gung Mem. Hospital - Puzi 74.22

 

News DailyMail (UK), 2023-4-28:  Young Australian student on his dream overseas exchange program is fighting for his life in Taiwan after eating street food laced with rat poison.  His Doctor father said:  "He had been misdiagnosed in Taiwan with an immune disorder".  Alex is at the Taipei Medical University Hospital ..."The medical services in Taiwan don't currently have the right treatments or drugs to stabilise his condition", "Alex's condition has grown worse and he needs to be flown to the Royal Prince Albert Hospital in Sydney via a specialised medical flight retrieval service".  dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12023841/Toowoomba-student-exchange-Taiwan-fighting-life-eating-food-laced-rat-poison.html

 

bribe The percentage of Taiwanese paying a bribe to public clinics or hospitals is higher than that in Japan, S. Korea, Malaysia

Transparency International, Germany /  Global Corruption Barometer - released 2021/2022
comparisons among main Asian countries

country

people who think
 government
 corruption
 is a big problem
public service
users
 paid a bribe
in the previous
 12 months
public
clinic,
health
centres
gov.
officials
local
gov.
officials
corruption
level
increased
in previous
12months
Taiwan 90% 17% 9% 19% 20% 38%
Japan 84 2 2 7 26 36
Malaysia 71 13 5 28 16 20
China 62 28 26 18 18 39
S Korea 55 10 6 26 42 17
transparency.org/en/countries/taiwan

 

Next TV news (壹新聞), 2021-10-28 19:12 : Now money-cash is not allowed,  patients give Doctors imported wine for better "treatment", in the amount of NT$3000~5000 at least. The Doctors regularly exchange those wine with money thru some channels.

 

PS: Taiwan's culture - presents to MDs for better treatment 台灣醫院的特殊送禮文化 | 胡涵婷 | 遠見華人精英論壇 | Global Views Leaders Forum (gvm.com.tw)

 

nPhysicians and medical personnel in Taiwan 

Statista: Number of medical personnel in Taiwan as of 2020, by type, Jan 27, 2022
statista.com/statistics/946929/taiwan-number-of-medical-personnel-by-type/

medical type number of personnel
Reg. nurses and professional nurses 178,498
Physicians 51,045
Pharmacists and assistant Pharmacists 35,734
Dentists 15,429
Medical technologists and technicians 10,179
Physical therapists and technicians, occupational therapists and technicians 9,073
Doctors of Chinese medicine 7,302
Dietians 3,405
Midwives and Reg. professional midwives 192
Dental assistants 29
At the end of 2021, there were approximately 183.3 thousand registered and professional nurses employed in Taiwan

 

                             Statista: Num. of physicians in Taiwan from '12 to '21           
    https://www.statista.com/statistics/860217/taiwan-physician-number/

yr

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021

number

40,938 41,965 42,961 44,006 44,849 46,356 47,471 49,542 51045 52175

increase

  1,027 996 1,045 843 1,507 1,115 2,071 1503 1130
Wikipedia (2021-5-5) and Liberty Times (2020-1-6),  Taiwan's doctor-to-population ratio (see pic. below) almost hit lowest in Asia WEF<Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 9-4-2019): Taiwan's Health & Hygiene (including "physicians density" ) score 6.0 is worse than that of  Japan,  Korea, and Australia, Mongolia.   According to  WEF <Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 4-6-2017), Taiwan's "Physician density" ranks world No. 65 (No. 57 in 2015's report).  
CommonWealth, 2022-4-12: Taiwan has an average 21.7 physicians per 10,000 population, which lags far behind the median of 33.6 physicians for the OECD countries (only Turkey is behind Taiwan).  In terms of healthcare's share of the national budget, which stands at 11 percent, behind the OECD average of 15 percent, which constricts the industry's growth potential...10- physicians per 10,000 inhabitantsdoes not even meet the lowest standard of the World Health Organization.  english.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=3198#:~:text=Taiwan%20has%20an%20average%2021.7,physicians%20for%20the%20OECD%20countries.

 

nCovID-19 in Taiwan 

New York Times,  2023-2-16 News briefing
CovID death per 100,000 people since 2020

Australia Taiwan S. Korea Indonesia Japan New Zealand Singapore China (official count)
74 70 65 59 55 50 30 6
China's official toll includes only infected people who died in hospitals

 

New York Times,  Feb. 23, 2023  12:12pm
Taiwan's death rate still ranks world No.1
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

world rank country cases per 100,000 14 days changed deaths per 100,000
1 Taiwan 67 -34% 0.25
6 Australia 10 -16 0.11
7 Japan 14 -54 0.10
23 NZ 24 -7 0.06
31 Hong Kong - - 0.04
35 S. Korea 20 -26 0.03
64 Malaysia <1 -14 <0.01
about 170 Singapore 0 -100 -
about 200 China - -100 -
world No. 66 Thailand,  No. 67 UAE,  No. 68 Indonesia,  71 Pakistan,  72 India,  80  Bangladesh,  127 Cambodia,  133 Laos,   147 Macao

 

Taiwanese government said at 2023-2-6 that the pandemic of third wave started from middle Dec. 2022, the number of deaths and the curve is relatively smooth; however, Taiwan's deaths per 100,000 ranked No.1 among main Asia countries since Oct. 2022, and then jumped to world No.1 at Feb. 2023.   Taiwanese government said (2023-2-17) the pandemic is ending, but the death rate at 2023-2-23 is still world No.1, cases per 100,000 ranks world No.2  (next to Nauru), according to New York Times.

 

According to New York Times (2023-2-6), Taiwan's CovID-19 death rate (deaths per 100,000)  ranks world No.1 (worst).   Taiwan's cases per 100,000 ranks world No.1.    In accord with NY Times (2023-2-14), only 17 countries got higher "fully vaccinated" rate than Taiwan's 87%.   Taiwan had bad record of "failure to administer CovID remedy in time" Bloomberg, 2021-7-25: Taiwan's medical care system is also run on a tight budget to keep costs affordable.  United Daily (2023-2-13): "Medicine should be prescribed but not prescribed, medicine should be taken but not taken".  udn.com/news/story/120940/6967331?from=udn_ch2cate6638sub120940_pulldownmenu_v2   

New York Times,  Feb. 6, 2023
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

world rank country Asia's rank deaths per 100,000 Fully Vaccinated
1 Taiwan 1 0.26 87%
2 Finland   0.26 79
3 Sweden   0.23 74
4 Bermuda   0.22 75
5 Latvia   0.21 68
6 Japan 2 0.21 82
12 Australia 3 0.12 85
29 S. Korea 4 0.05 86
35 China 5 0.03 91
49 Macau 6 0.02 100
62 Philippines 7 0.01 68
71 NZ 8 <0.01 84

 

New York Times,  Feb. 6, 2023
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

world rank country cases per 100,000 14 days changed deaths daily average deaths per 100,000
1 Taiwan 111 +39% 63 0.26
4 Japan 32 -55 262.6 0.21
5 S.Korea 29 -43 27.7 0.05
7 NZ 23 - 0.3 <0.01
11 Australia 12 -23 30.4 0.12
19 Singapore 8 +26 0.1 <0.01
  China 1 -79 468.3 0.03
  world 3 -34% 2187 0.03


WSWS.org, 2022-12-1: In the past week alone, ... placing Taiwan in the top ten in the world for cases per million people. It also currently has the second-highest deaths per million. Total overall cases stand at 8,313,366 with 14,334 deaths, most occurring since April. wsws.org/en/articles/2022/12/01/bqmc-d01.html  
New York Times (2022-11-15), Taiwan's CovID-19 deaths per 100,000 ranks last among main Asian countries. According to New York Times (2022-10-25), Taiwan's CovID-19 cases per 100,000 and deaths per 100,000 both are the worst among main Asian countries.

The China Times, editorial (2022-11-23):  Taiwan's CovID-19 case-fatality rate (確診致死率) in recent two weeks ranks world No.3, such a bad record lasts at least two weeks. chinatimes.com/opinion/20221123004522-262101?chdtv

The China Times (2022-10-26): Taiwan's confirmed cases per 1000,000 in last 7 days ranks world last.  (chinatimes.com/opinion/20221025005192-262101?chdtv)
 

New York Times, 2022-11-15
Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak   
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html

country/region Death daily per100,000 Deaths daily avg.
Taiwan 0.24 56.9
Hong Kong 0.13 10
New Zealand 0.1 5.1
S Korea 0.09 45.1
Japan 0.06 69.7
Australia 0.06 14.3
Malaysia 0.03 8.9
Indonesia 0.02 41.4
Philippines 0.02 17.4
Singapore 0.02 0.9
Thailand <0.01 6
India <0.01 4
Saudi Arabia <0.01 2.1
Bangladesh <0.01 0.4
Sri Lanka <0.01 0.3
Pakistan <0.01 0.3
Mongolia <0.01 0.1
Myanmar <0.01 0
UAE - 0
Qatar - 0
Nepal - 0
Laos - 0
Cambodia - 0
Vietnam - 0
China - 0
Macau - 0

New York Times, 2022-10-25
Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak   
nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html
 

country/region cases daily avg. per100,000 Deaths daily avg. Deaths per100,000
World 364,848 5 1,488.9 0.02
Taiwan 36,863 155 61.9 0.26
Singapore 5,941 104 1.7 0.03
Hong Kong 5,438 73 8.3 0.11
New Zealand 3,260 66 4.4 0.09
S Korea 23,025 45 16.9 0.03
Japan 34,409 27 57.3 0.05
Australia 4634 18 12.9 0.05
Qatar 471 17 0.1 <0.01
Malaysia 1932 6 3 <0.01
UAE 282 3 0.1 <0.01
Philippines 1541 1 37.9 0.04
Indonesia 2201 <1 18.6 <0.01
Saudi Arabia 228 <1 1.9 <0.01
Mongolia 21 <1 0 -
Vietnam 593 <1 0.4 <0.01
Thailand 374 <1 5.7 <0.01
Myanmar 195 <1 0.9 <0.01
Laos 12 <1 0 -
India 1760 <1 9.5 <0.01
Bangladesh 176 <1 1.0 <0.01
China 844 <1 0 -
SriLanka 9 <1 0.6 <0.01

 

Global comparison: where are confirmed CovID-19 deaths increasing most rapidly?
How long does it take the number of total  confirmed deaths to double
Oxford University , ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths   2022-10-8

Asian country days to double deaths Asian country days to double deaths
Taiwan  106  Sri Lanka 405
New Zealand 110    Philippines 412
Australia 149 Cambodia 426
S Korea 196  Myanmar 431
 HK 204  Indonesia 441  
 Japan  225 Bangladesh 462
 Laos 278   India 511
Singapore 292 China 955
Vietnam 349  Asia 481
Thai 374     world 527
 Mongolia 380    
Malaysia 397    
1. Micronesia   38 days, 2 Marshall Island 51 days, 3 Macau 85 days, Taiwan ranks world No.4 

 

 

new CovID-19 cases per 1M
Oxford University , ourworldindata.org/covid-cases    2022-10-8

country new cases per 1M country new cases per 1M
Taiwan 1.88K Philippines 19.8
Singapore 840.28  Vietnam  9.93
HK 500.82 Thai  8.85
S Korea  453.83  India  1.94
NZ 277.1   China 0.66  
 Japan  265.1 Sri Lanka 0.49  
Australia 202.5  Cambodia 0.31
Malaysia 48.27  Macau  0
Mongolia 24.15    
Asia  26.62 , N America  71, Taiwan ranks world No.3, No.1 Micronesia  10.16K, No.2 Saint Helena   8.06K

 

 Nikkei Asia (Japan) , 2022-7-8: In latest Nikkei CovID-19 Recovery Index, Taiwan, at 112th, is still grappling with tens of thousands of cases every day. The current wave has cost the island nearly 6,500 lives. ( Taiwan ranks last in Asia & Pacific )
Bloomberg's CovID Resilience Ranking, 2022-6-29: But they've been unable to outrun omicron: Taiwan and Hong Kong both saw deaths spike as more virus circulated (bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/)

 

Nikkei CovID-19 Recovery Index, as of Aug. 31


asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Recovery-Index/China-slips-in-COVID-recovery-ranking-with-fresh-lockdowns

Sept. 9, 2022
rankings of main countries in Asia & Pacific

 

World Rank Asia Rank Country/region World Rank Asia RK Country/region
2 1 Vietnam 33 10 Saudi Arabia
3 2 Cambodia 40 11 Mongolia
5 3 Qatar 50 12 China
11 4 UAE 52 13 Australia
14 5 S. Korea 52 13 Malaysia
19 6 Singapore 54 15 Pakistan
22 7 Bangladesh 57 16 India
27 8 New Zealand 57 16 Taiwan
31 9 Nepal 61 18 Hong Kong
 

Taiwan -  falling infections and eased anti-COVID policies.  Taiwan is trying to reopen its borders by resuming visa-free entry for visitors from the U.S., Europe and some other departure points, starting next week.
 

China Times》editorial, 2022-9-7: All of Taiwan's CovID-19 policies have been lagging behind, much slower than other countries.  Now Taiwan orders BA.1 vaccines, an outdated model of the next-generation vaccine.  Why is the government not willing to purchase the most updated vaccine targets BA.5?  Is there any "calculation" under table ??  chinatimes.com/opinion/20220907005076-262101?chdtv

 

 

Nikkei CovID-19 Recovery Index

asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Recovery-Index/Cambodia-Vietnam-top-COVID-recovery-index-as-Asia-fears-new-waves    
2022-7-8 
comparison among main countries in Asia & Pacific

Asia's rank world rank country score
1 1 Cambodia 78
2 2 Vietnam 76.5
3 4 S. Korea 72.5
4 5 Qatar 72
5 6 Bangladesh 71
5 6 Nepal 71
7 11 Saudi Arabia 69.5
8 14 Sri Lanka 68
9 18 Mongolia 67.5
9 18 UAE 67.5
11 26 Malaysia 66.5
12 30 Japan 64
13 35 India 63.5
14 38 China 63
15 49 Pakistan 61.5
16 53 Hong Kong 61
16 53 Indonesia 61
16 53 Thailand 61
19 62 Philippines 60.5
20 71 Laos 59
20 71 Singapore 59
22 79 Myanmar 58
23 88 Australia 55
24 101 NZ 53
25 112 Taiwan 50
Source: The Index ranks 121 countries/regions on infection management, vaccine rollouts, and social mobility.  A higher ranking indicates a country is closer to recovery with its low numbers of confirmed cases/deaths, better vaccination rates and less stringent social distancing measures; data sources include Our World in Data, Google CovID-19 Community Mobility Reports, Oxford CovID-19 Gov. Response Tracker, Cirum, and Nikkei Asia research

 

Statista, 2022-7-27: Coronavirus (COVID-19)  death rate
in countries with confirmed deaths and over 1,000 reported cases
as of April 26, 2022, by country
comparisons among main Asian countries

statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/

countries World ranks cases in last 7 days Death Rate
NZ Cook Islands No.1 526 0.02
Bhutan No.2 3317 0.03
New Zealand No.5 45748 0.07
Singapore No.8 16728 0.11
Australia No.9 247199 0.12
S Korea No.11 426645 0.13
Qatar No.19 546 0.19
Mongolia No.24 196 0.24
UAE No.26 1459 0.26
Israel No.26 21334 0.26
Laos No.34 4515 0.36
Japan No.38 244929 0.38
Vietnam No.42 82453 0.41
Thailand No.71 110385 0.6
China No.74 179114 0.6
Malaysia No.93 31317 0.8
Lebanon No.105 651 0.9
Saudi Arabia No.125 678 1.2
India No.128 12503 1.21
Nepal No.129 78 1.22
Taiwan No.143 23976 1.39

Bloomberg's CovID Resilience Ranking, 2022-6-29
comparison - Taiwan with some other main countries in Asia & Pacific
 They’ve been unable to outrun Omicron: Taiwan saw deaths spike as more virus circulated ...
 
country 1-month cases per 100,000 resilience rank 3-month case fatality rate pandemic MVPs
Taiwan 7826 next to last 0.2% No.37
mainland China 0 No.51 0.1%  
Hong Kong 376 No.49 1.9%  
Malaysia 169 No.37 0.2%  
New Zealand 3383 No.35 0.2% No.21
Bangladesh 8 No.34 0.1% No.27
Japan 373 No.30 0.1% No.15
Vietnam 28 No.18 0%  
Singapore 2255 No.14 0% No.13
Australia 3216 No.9 0.1% No.24
UAE 336 No.2 0% No.1
S. Korea 502 No.1 0.2% No.4
bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/
PS: Taiwan's scores on "Flight Capacity", "vaccinated travel routes" are last but one

 

◆ Global Times, 2022-6-10: "The handling of outbreak also proved that Taiwan's medical and health facilities are inadequate and cannot take care of a large number of patients at the same time, which is completely inconsistent with Taiwan's claim that it has advanced medical and health infrastructure,""In any place where a public health crisis was so badly handled and people's lives were treated carelessly with no respect, the authorities should resign."   globaltimes.cn/page/202206/1267806.shtml

 

Nikkei Asia, 2022-5-5: Taiwan's ranking has plunged (down to No.94, behind most countries in Asia & Pacific, e.g., Japan, Korea, Singapore) in the latest edition of Nikkei's COVID-19 Recovery Index as the island transitions from a strict zero-virus strategy to living with the respiratory illness, even as infections surge.  South Korea ranking soars as infections plunge and mobility curbs ease.  newagebd.net, 2022-5-7: The index is maintained by Nikkei, Japan's leading business publication group that includes the Nikkei, Nikkei Asia, and the Financial Times (of London), assessing countries and regions on infection management, vaccine rollouts and social mobility. asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/COVID-19-Recovery-Index/Taiwan-China-tumble-in-Nikkei-COVID-Recovery-Index-amid-outbreaks    AFP, France24, 2022-4-7: Taiwan will move away from a zero-Covid policy and instead focus on tackling the most severe infections...One sticking point could be lacklustre vaccination rates...Vaccination rates among the elderly, the most vulnerable demographic, are also low.  france24.com/en/live-news/20220407-taiwan-to-move-away-from-zero-covid-strategy-minister  Financial Times (UK) , 2022-4-18  (ft.com/content/dd4a3bd0-8973-4222-9eed-f9bfe4c37691): Ho Mei-shang, an adjunct fellow at Academia Sinica says It would be a failure if some people even did not get the chance to get into the health facilities. "We must preserve the capacity of our health system for those who need it." United Daily, 2022-4-8, editorial: Taiwan's testing capacity and medication are obviously not good enough - Remdesivir only 16,000,  Paxlovid 4,000+ available.  udn.com/news/story/7338/6223069?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2   China Times, editorial, 2022-4-8: on average, one out of 1000 people can have antiCovID medication.  chinatimes.com/opinion/20220407004272-262101?chdtv 

 Bloomberg CovID Resilience Ranking   2022-5-27
Taiwan ranks the 3rd from the end   

 ranks of
countries (Asia & Pacific)

CovID cases per 100,000 people over the past month (JHU) The Strength of
health-care system
CovID deaths as a share of cases over the past 3months (%)
 No. 6.  S Korea 1955 89 0.1
12.  Singapore 1760 92 0.1
23.  Australia 5074 89 0.1
  34.  Malaysia  185 67 0.3
35.  Thai. 328 72 0.4
41.  Japan 786 96 0.2
  44.  New Zealand  4389 83 0.1
  48.  Hong Kong 115 - 0.8
 51. Taiwan (drop 19 positions )  6031 79 0
52.  Chn 9 70 0.1
53 countries in total; bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-resilience-ranking/spanish.html

 

Lancet
Measuring universal health coverage based on an index of effective coverage of health services, 2020-10-17
Taiwan and some other countries of Asia & Pacific

country score
Japan 96
Singapore 92
S. Korea 89
Australia 89
New Zealand 83
Kuwait 82
Qatar 80
Taiwan 79
mainland China 70
thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30750-9/fulltext

 

Lancet / Health Access and Quality Index
Taiwan and some other countries of Asia & Pacific

ranks country score
6 Australia 90
11 Japan 89
21 Singapore 86
21 New Zealand 86
21 South Korea 86
27 Qatar 85
32 Kuwait 82
37 Lebanon 80
40 Saudi Arabia 79
45 Taiwan 78

thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30818-8/fulltext   2017-7-15

 


STATISTA   2022-5-5

Coronavirus (COVID-19) death rate in countries with confirmed deaths
and over 1,000 reported cases as of April 26, 2022, by country
 
Characteristic (main country in Asia & Pacific) Death rate
Indonesia 2.58
Philippines 1.63
Taiwan 1.39
India 1.21
Saudi Arabia 1.2
Malaysia 0.8
China 0.69
Thailand 0.67
Vietnam 0.41
Japan 0.38
Laos 0.36
UAE 0.26
Mongolia 0.24
Qatar 0.19
S. Korea 0.13
Australia 0.12
Singapore 0.11
New Zealand 0.07
NZ Cook islands 0.02

statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/

 


STATISTA, 2022-4-19

Coronavirus (COVID-19) death rate

in countries
with confirmed deaths
and over 1,000 reported cases
 as of April 7, 2022, by country

 

Taiwan's death rate

is highest
 among
major countries

 in Asia & Pacific
 

country Death rate(%) Confirmed cases number of deaths
Taiwan* 3.38 25,225 853
Indonesia 2.58 6,026,324 155,464
Sri Lanka 2.49 662,342 16,486
Cambodia 2.25 135,834 3,055
Pakistan 1.99 1,526,093 30,361
Philippines 1.61 3,680,244 59,422
Bangladesh 1.49 1,951,903 29,123
India 1.21 43,031,958 521,530
Saudi Arabia 1.2 751,404 9,053
China 0.88 1,495,380 13,098
Malaysia 0.82 4,280,591 35,192
Thailand 0.68 3,807,908 25,788
Vietnam 0.43 9,980,464 42,712
Japan 0.42 6,830,997 28,462
Laos 0.36 188,985 684
Australia 0.13 4,910,819 6,495
South Korea 0.12 14,778,405 18,381
Singapore 0.11 1,123,886 1,287
New Zealand 0.06 741,987 426
statista.com/statistics/1105914/coronavirus-death-rates-worldwide/   2022-4-19

 

Oral antiviral pills for CovID
USA Taiwan
CNBC, 2022-3-1: President Joe Biden said Americans will be able to get Covid antiviral pills (Paxlovid or Merck's molnupiravir) for free if they test positive at a pharmacy. China Times, CTV news, 2022-4-27: oral antiviral pills for CovID are not enough
SETN, 2022-4-11: 350 thousands courses Paxlovid will be reached by June, another 350 thousands Paxlovid were bought already (Taiwan's population about 24.5 millions) setn.com/news.aspx?newsid=1098466&utm_source=avividai.com&utm_medium=avividai&utm_campaign=avividainews&differ_push_day=202204111416&p=0
UDN, 2022-5-1: Americans can receive Paxlovid for free, by contrast, CDC asks Taiwanese to prepare medicines for curing a cold.  udn.com/news/story/7339/6279548?from=udn_ch2cate6643sub7339_pulldownmenu_v2
TVBS, TTV, 2022-4-28: CovID Patient aged 60+ was not allowed to stay in hospital and died in the next day    news.ttv.com.tw/news/11104280010800I

 

In Bloomberg's "Winners and Losers" from a year of ranking Covid resilience (Nov. 25, 2021), Taiwan was ranked No.31 among 53 countries.  Bloomberg, 2021-10-28: Taiwan's 3-month case-fatality rate is 7.7%, (2021-9-2813.4%) the worst worldwide, compared with Singapore's 0.2~0.3%, China 0%.  Taiwan's case-fatality rate is 4.38% (JHU, 2022-2-17), compared with 5.015% (2021-12-28) and 5.17% (2021-10-28 coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/taiwan, Microsoft Bing statistics), and 4.9% (July 2021) which ranked 8th highest worldwide according to Johns Hopkins University, China Post, 2021-7-14.  Statista : Taiwan's CovID-19 patient recovery rate (2020-1-22 ~ 2022-2-13) is 70.23%, Microsoft Bing statistics, 2022-2-14: recovered 0;     The father of CoronaVirus in Taiwan, 賴明詔, said Singapore's medical tech. is better, and the culture is different. ( e.g., Financial Times, 2021-6-1: Another problem appears to be cultural...other public health experts have been discouraged from challenging Health Minister......The country ... was not prepared for a surge of infections).  Guardian, 2021-6-7: Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains...   theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak  Statista, 2021-9-24: The number of physicians in Taiwan in 2020 is 51045, compared with 49542 in 2019.   The PCR test capacity in Singapore is 5+ times of that in Taiwan (https://udn.com/news/story/121823/5493969?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2) , but Singapore's population is about 1/4 Taiwan's.  FTV, 2021-7-12: Taiwan's CoVID high death rate is caused by inadequate medicine.  UDN, 2021-6-7: It's hard and sometimes too late for CovID-19 patients to have Remdesivir.  Bloomberg, 2021-7-25: Taiwan’s medical care system is run on a tight budget to keep costs affordable.  Taipei Medical University professo comments Taiwan's medical quality is no longer good.  Taiwan's former medical chief 楊志良 (chinatimes.com/opinion/20210804005734-262104?chdtv) criticizes that the health & medical system has been damaged full text: CovID-19 in Taiwan  There's no any Taiwan's hospitals selected in "World's Best Hospitals - Newsweek" in 2020 and 2021.

 

 ABC News, 2021-11-11: Taiwan did not have any COVID-19 antibody drugs when the outbreak exploded in May.  Taiwan had a limited stock of remdesivir, an anti-viral drug from Gilead, "There wasn’t enough, you could only get it if you applied for it from the central government,”.  Further, it wasn't covered by the island's national health insurance scheme, making it affordable only for a small percent of the population.  That antibody treatments would not have made a huge difference in the number of deaths given a culture of being cautious in prescribing medications.   ref. to abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/taiwanese-families-covid-19-deaths-happen-81105354

 

 

 

pic. : The website-group was ranked No.1 "comment Taiwan hospitals" on US Google ,  2022-9-19, 2021-9-15

 

 

pic. : The website-group was ranked No.1 "comment Taiwan hospitals" on Baidu of China ,  2021-9-13, 2019-10-24

 

 

      

pic. left: No.1 "medical Doctors in Taiwan" on Microsoft Bing ,   2021-7-18, 2021-6-4, 2021-5-25, 2021-4-27, 2021-4-10,  3-10-2021, 2-12-2021, 8-17-2020, 8-5-2020;
pic. right: No.1 "physicians in Taiwan" on Microsoft Bing , 2021-9-9, 2021-7-18,  2021-6-4, 2021-5-25, 2021-4-27, 2021-4-10, 3-10-2021, 2-12-2021

 

 

       

 pic. left: No.1 "medical Doctors in Taiwan" on SwissCows (Switzerland) ,2021-7-18,  2021-5-31;  pic. right: No.1 "medical Doctors in Taiwan" on ecosia (Germany) , 2021-7-18, 2021-5-31

 

 

pic. above: No.1 "medical Doctors  in Taiwan" on Yahoo Taiwan , 2021-6-4

 

 

 

pic. : This websites group was ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  test at  2020-1-20   

 

 

 

 


Some government's research projects such as 「2019年西醫師人力發展估計畫期末報告」,「衛生福利部104年度科技研究計畫」by Dr. Chao A. Hsiung, 熊昭 conclude: the supply shortage pf physicians (M.D.) would be possible, given that the number of regional hospitals increasing one per year till end of 2020, as for other scenarios, supply exceeds demand.  The Liberty Times (opinion, 12-22-2020, https://talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1420360王宏育) notes that, on average, one medical Doctor is for 250- patients in Taipei city, 500- patients in Taiwan, besides, about 1500 Doctors graduate from medical school in each year, Taiwan's current problem are (1) the more Doctors, the heavier burden to insurance system, (2) inequality  ―  the underprivileged minority in remote places needs better medical care.  In contrast, according to WEF<Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 9-4-2019), Taiwan's Health & Hygiene (including "physicians density" ) score 6.0 is worse than that of No.16 Japan, No. 17 Korea, and Australia, Mongolia  According to  WEF<Travel and tourism competitiveness report> (released at 4-6-2017), Taiwan's "Physician density" ranks pretty bad   ―   world No. 65 (No. 57 in 2015's report).  

According to Wikipedia (2021-5-5) and Liberty Times (2020-1-6),  Taiwan's doctor-to-population ratio (see pic. below) almost hit lowest in Asia, behind Japan, Korea, Singapore, China, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam...even Myanmar,  Doctor visits about 2 to 5 minutes per patient.  Taiwan also suffers a shortage of nurses.  For budget factor, Taiwan's system has no regard for faculties of risk (surgery, internal medicine, gynaecology, pediatrics, emergency), which affects the medicine, operation and diagnostic tools (X-ray vs. MRI) prescribed.  The government said (LTN, 2020-1-6) the upper limit, 1,300, of new Doctors in each year will be reevaluated.  Scholar 鄭英耀 criticized the big imbalance of medical resource between Taipei and Kaohsiung, TaiTung, PinTung, remote places, mountains, which should be improved urgently.  As for other indexes, Taiwan loses Hong Kong, Macau (China), Singapore, S. Korea etc in indexes such as Life Expectancy at birth, Death per 1,000 Population, and Health-Care Cost, etc (see pic. below).  Taiwan was not included in top 100 "best healthcare in the world, 2021" by world population review (worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world).  None of Taiwan's hospitals were selected in Newsweek's "World Best Hospitals 2020", but many hospitals in Asia's Singapore, Japan, South Korea, India etc were included in top 100 (see pic. below) Taiwan's high education was ranked around No. 8 ~ No. 10 among Asian & Pacific countries in Nature Index (2020), Times Higher Education-World University Rank (2021),  Quacquarelli Symonds UK (2021) full text , etc.   Apple Daily (6-30-2018) notes Taiwan's only pride left, health insurance, includes no preventive health care and health promotion, and will worsen within next 10 years for political factors.   Apple Daily (6-30-2018) pointed out Taiwan's only pride left, health insurance, includes no preventive health care and health promotion, and will worsen within next 10 years for political factors. 

Wikipedia : physicians density in Asia

 Newsweek:  World Best Hospitals 2020

Asia's rankings country  physicians
per 10,000 people
global
rankings
country hospitals
1 Qatar 77.4 8 Singapore Singapore General Hospital
2 N Korea 33 16 Japan St Luke's Int'l Hospital
3 Australia 32.7 18 Japan  The U of Tokyo Hospital
4 Lebanon 32 28 Australia Royal Melbourne Hospital
5 Mongolia 28.4 31 Singapore National Univ Hospital 
6 New Zealand 27.4 36 Australia Alfred Hospital
7 Jordan 25.6 42 S. Korea Samsung Medical Center
8 UAE 25.3 45 Japan Kyoto Univ Hospital
9 Saudi Arabia 24.9 50-100 India All India Institute of Medical Sciences
10 Japan 23 Japan Kameda Medical Center
11 Korea 21.4 S. Korea Korea Univ Anam Hospital
12 Singapore 19.5 Japan Kurashiki Center Hospital
13 China 14.9 Japan Kyushu Univ Hospital
14 Malaysia 12 Japan Osaka Univ Hospital
15 Philippines 12 Australia Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital
16 Vietnam 11.9 Australia Royal prince Alfred Hospital
17 Iran 9 S. Korea Seoul National Univ - Bundang Hospital
18 Pakistan 8.3 S. Korea Seoul National Univ Hospital
19 Indonesia 8 S. Korea Severance Hospital
20 India 7 S. Korea The Catholic Univ of Korea - St. Mary's Hospital
21 Myanmar 6.1

 table. above:  newsweek.com/best-hospitals-2020

Taiwan was not selected in "World's Best Hospitals" 2021 by Newsweek

table left: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_physicians
, data:  2007-2013

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Taiwan   2021-5-5

 

talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1343896   Liberty Times, 2020-1-6

talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1343897
talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1343895

22 Iraq 6.1
23 Taiwan  (Taipei city) 5.01
23 Taiwan
 (Kaohsiung city, PingTung, TaiTung city)
2.12
24 Laos 1.8
25 Cambodia 1.7
Health Care Costs By Country 2021   World population Data Sheet, PRB  2020-7-10  

 

Global
Rankings
Country Global
Rankings
Country Country Life Expectancy
 at birth
L.Expectancy
(Male)
L.Expectancy
(Female)
Death per 1000 population
1 China 27 Myanmar China HK 85 82 88 6
2 India 28 South Korea Macau 84 81 87 3
4 Indonesia 36 Iraq Japan 84 81 87 11
5 Pakistan 41 Saudi Arabia Singapore 83 81 85 5
8 Bangladesh 45 Malaysia S Korea 83 80 86 6
11 Japan 49 Nepal Taiwan 80 77 84 7
13 Philippines 54 North Korea    
15 Vietnam 57 Taiwan  

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/health-care-costs-by-country

worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/best-healthcare-in-the-world    2021

prb.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/letter-booklet-2020-world-population.pdf

18 Iran 58 Sri Lanka
20 Thailand 71 Cambodia 

According to professor 林鴻志 on Apple Daily (2021-5-8, tw.appledaily.com/forum/20210508/3DJUH6VA2ZEKDEIOXXCAHEER4E/ ), Taiwan's neonatal mortality rate is ranked at latter part of OECD countries, top 5 death causes are congenital anomaly chromosome abnormalities, respiratory diseases, PNM, Perinatal mortality, illness related to fetal growth & gestation, accidents and perinatal infection.  The government needs to improve national insurance coverage, on such as a well-trained and licensed Doctor should be on the site when a child was born, to decrease the possibility of complication.   The statistics by CIA Factbook and Wikipedia show Taiwan's Infant Mortality ranks world No. 41 and is behind countries of Asia & Pacific like Japan, Singapore, HK, S. Korea, Australia, Macau and NZ in 2020 as well as in 2018. (see table below)

Infant mortality (deaths/1,000 live births) – 2018 and 2020 estimates

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_and_under-five_mortality_rates

rankings country death/1,000 live births(2020) death/1,000 live births (2018)

Doctors per 10,000 people in Taiwan

  Taipei Southern and Eastern Taiwan (Kaohsiung, PinTung, TaiTung, PonHo), remote places
physicians 5.01 2.12
surgeon 1.77 0.82
Pediatrics 1.11 0.46
Obstetrics & Gynecology  0.86 0.42
Accident & Emergency 0.82 0.47
Liberty Times, 2020-1-6;
talk.ltn.com.tw/article/paper/1343896
1 (2) Japan 1.9 2.0
2 (5) Singapore 2.3 2.3
3 (12) Hong Kong 2.7 2.7
4 (13) S. Korea 3 3.0
5 (14) Australia 3.1 4.2
5 (15) Macau 3.1 3.1
6 (30) NZ 3.5 4.1
7 (41) Taiwan 4.2 4.3

Taiwan only ranks world 45th position in Lancet's Healthcare Access and Quality Index released in 2017 (based on mortality from causes amenable to personal health care in 195 countries and territories, 1990–2015: a novel analysis from the Global Burden of Disease Study, 2015),  some chronic disease items got very low scores, e.g.,   Leukemia score 49,  Kidney disease 50, Gallbladder & biliary 57, Hypertensive Heart Disease 60,   diabetes mellitus 58, etc.  But, according to Lancet's Measuring performance on the Healthcare Access and Quality Index released at May 23, 2018,  from 1990 to 2016, 186 of 195 countries and territories significantly increased their HAQ Index score, South Korea, Taiwan (Province of China), and Cyprus recorded the largest improvements among high-SDI countries.  Taiwan's HAQ is still behind other Asia & Pacific countries, Australia, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, and USA.

Lancet's national or territory

estimates of the HAQ Index

yr. 2016 2000  
Australia 95.9 90.4
Japan 94.1 86.9
New Zealand 92.4 87.0
Singapore 90.6 79.7
S Korea 90.3 74.4
USA 88.7 86.8
Taiwan 85.4 71.8

  Taiwan ranks world 45th in Lancet's Healthcare Access and Quality Index released in 2017
   
   

http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140-6736(17)30818-8.pdf  

Besides, Apple Daily (2021-4-23) points out that the neurology (taking care of the most number of Persons with Disabilities) and its patients have been often ignored by government and national insurance system.  ( tw.appledaily.com/forum/20210423/DMJGXHAOSBGO5J5KUNRFL5MVSA/ )

AIT (American de facto embassy to Taiwan,  ait.org.tw/u-s-citizen-services/doctors/) made some comments about Taiwan's medical system : (1) huge numbers of physicians in large hospitals have received training abroad – most of them in the U.S. (2) In most Taiwanese emergency rooms, patients lying on gurneys crowded everywhere – sometimes down the hall and out the door  (3)  Hospital based outpatient clinics differ dramatically from Western notions of privacy and the doctor-patient relationship (4) In some instances, the ambulances are short of trained technicians or/and medical equipments......  

As for CovID-19 , in Bloomberg's CovID-19 Resilience Ranking (2021-8-25, 2021-6-28),  Taiwan plunges into the bottom half of the Ranking , accentuated by a lagging vaccination drive and a resurgent outbreak; compared with the same list No. 4 in April, and No. 15 in May 2021.  Till 2021-8-26, Taiwan's 3-month case-fatality rate is worse among countries of Asia & Pacific.  Taiwan's recovery rate  is worse than that of other major countries of Asia & Pacific.   Media reports (UDN, 2021-6-7) Taiwanese patients in serious situation waiting for about one week but failed to get Remdesivir, a specific remedy for cure coronavirus, in spite of that CovID headquarter declares Remdesivir in stock is enough.  In short, the stock is enough because they don't give you. (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2) 

  China Times, editorial, 2021-6-9: The medicine for patients is not enough which made high death rate and high number of severe CovID disease.
chinatimes.com/opinion/20210608005991-262101?chdtv  CTV news, 2021-6-9: In 2020, only 1 hospital, NTUH,  can use  Remdesivir, a specific remedy for CovID-19 patients, in earlier this year, all hospitals need CDC's approval (was rejected quite often) and usually 8 ~ 12 hours for patients to use it, sometimes it's too late to save lives.  CTV news, 2021-6-30, 19:11: CovID patient in Ministry of Health's PingTung Hospital got nothing but antipyretic, cough medicine.  Besides, Taiwan did not use Monoclonal antibody  in the first place to save patients.  Will Taiwan's national Insurance system treat patients with other critical diseases like this ?  Taipei Medical University professor says "we should no more think Taiwan's medical quality is quite good" (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2).  Global Times criticizes "Taiwan authorities have no intention or power to fight the epidemic at all.",  "Taiwan's COVID-19 fight has been a mess and the Taiwan authorities can only play tricks to make up for their mistakes".   globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225525.shtml globaltimes.cn/page/202106/1225540.shtml (ps: they regard politics more).  China Times, 2021-6-26: some medical expert's critiques lead to being "horror attack" by internet army.  No wonder some experts might doubt Taiwan's pride - national insurance system, treats money more than its nationals' health and lives.
  The lawmaker blasted (2021-6-9 news) what color the Health minister's heart is !

 

Why ? CovID-19 death rate in Taiwan is worse than global average !

put cart before the horse !


Taiwan's CovID-10 recovery rate is near end of Asia, and the entire world.   As for death rate ...

SCMP, 2021-6-9,  scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3136609/coronavirus-critics-ask-why-taiwans-death-rate-higher-global:  Taiwan has a fatality-per-infection rate of 2.78 per cent compared with global average 2.14 per cent critics ask why Taiwan’s death rate is higher than the global pandemic average ?
Taiwanese government's official answer is
mainly because of the acute rise in cases in the past month and because many patients had pre-existing chronic diseases
However, the causes probably are more than that ...

inadequate medicines /  
(1) CTV news, 2021-6-9: In 2020, only one hospital, NTUH,  can use  Remdesivir, a specific remedy for CovID-19 patients, in earlier this year, all hospitals need CDC's approval (was rejected quite often) and usually take 8 ~ 12 hours for patients to have it, sometimes it's too late.  (2) China Times, 2021-6-9 : Doctors say increasing deaths are related to inadeguate medication   chinatimes.com/opinion/20210608005991-262101?chdtv   (3) United Daily, editorial, Jun. 2021: severe patient awaited one week but failed to have Remdesivir, CDC said adequate medication for Covid-19 patients. ―  expert comments:  patients are hard to have it, certainly medicines are enough。 (udn.com/news/story/7339/5513808?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2  ).  Taiwan national insurance system cares money more than lives and health.


  shortage of vaccines  /   older people are not priority group to vaccination
      (1)  New York Times, 2021-5-21:
New York Times, 2021-5-21: Taiwan focused on developing its own vaccine, which has yet to pan out, and did not hustle for overseas doses. (Taiwan's vaccine probably can not get the green light from the global health body, media like UDN, CTV, CTN etc question the gov. trying to have benefit from local vaccine
      (2) 
CDC , 2021-6-8:  90+% deaths are aged 60+news 2021-6-5: about 70% sever patients are aged 60+.   Unlike western countries giving old citizens priority to take vaccination, Taiwanese old citizens were behind the waiting queue, even now they are in 6th priority and 11th priority.  New Taipei City once tried to move the elder forward, but CDC warn to allocate smaller vaccines.

      (3)  CTS  TV news (華視) 2021-6-9: some people have privilege to take vaccination  ! ;  CTV news (中視), 2021-6-9 : Lawmaker slammed abusing power to take vaccination, just like Taiwan's lousy judiciary ("有錢判生 沒錢死"  ―  "有錢免排  沒錢等埋"   FTV news, 2021-6-9 (8:00pm ~) criticizes Taipei government for vaccination privilege.


  wrong order  /   Financial Times, 2021-6-1: Taipei put patients with light symptoms up in the best-equipped hospital beds before the local outbreak. Hospitals were therefore not ready to rapidly take up the large numbers of severe cases arriving now

ft.com/content/9c0aaf96-28ed-4dee-88a9-38557a200813   (Taiwan failed to take flexible measure, why ?)

  lacking knowledge /   Guardian, 2021-6-7: Taiwan authorities hadn’t kept up with new scientific knowledge around virulent new strains,  theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/07/a-victim-of-its-own-success-how-taiwan-failed-to-plan-for-a-major-covid-outbreak

 
Taiwan did not give importance to the importance of ventilation , mass testing, or locking down hard and early, instead, they work on police investigation, etc.

 

 

Former medical chief 楊志良 warns (TVBS, 1-17-2021) epidemic prevention will fail if gov. continues to take strategy of political manipulation and double standard in favor of medical circle for voting.  Soon after a study published in the medical journal Lancet (Oct. 1, 2020) estimates the number of Taiwanese infected with CoronaVirus by July 2020 is 25 times more cases than Taiwan's official number.  Washington Post, 12-22-2020: Taiwan snaps world’s longest Covid-free streak after pilot infects local resident. (The loophole of Taiwan is pilots undergo a less strict three days of self-quarantine after each overseas trip) United Daily, editorial (12-24-2020) points out the myth of Taiwan's longest Covid-free streak has always been questioned because  (1) lots of tourists or foreign laborers were found infected while going through their country's immigration (2) lots of foreign art-performers and laborers were found infected after 14 days home quarantine in Taiwan.  These let us know there indeed are "mild CovID-19 spread in some corners of our communities " (輕症傳播), people with coronavirus infections have no or mild symptoms.  Fortunately everyone in Taiwan wearing masks stops serious situation. (https://udn.com/news/story/7338/5117298?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2 )  ABC News (12-15-2020) reported Taiwan has set a goal to vaccinate only 60% of its population with a COVID-19 vaccine (abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/latest-korea-opening-dozens-free-virus-test-sites-74710084 ).  But VOA, LTN, 12-25-2020 (news.ltn.com.tw/news/world/breakingnews/3391701) advise 70% of a country's population should have antibody or must to take vaccinate.   Till Feb., 2021, Taiwan's health system has not collapsed under the weight of the coronavirus pandemic, most hospitals are functional, severe and intractable patients remained same number, but some departments - Emergency, Pediatrics, Dentistry, ENT, Rehabilitation treatment were affected between Feb. and May 2020, some hospitals' income falls short of expenditure. (tw.appledaily.com/forum/20210221/LK57ZDY4FJHZVK3THEXEZWNY5U/ 李偉強 )

Professor 楊哲銘 on Apple Daily (12-14-2020) says stigmatization and discrimination of diseases is bad for Taiwan's National Insurance systems.  The laws (e.g., Communicable Disease Control Act, HIV Infection Control & Patient Rights Protection Act ) to protect and respect the dignity and the legal rights of the infected obviously are useless.  US (state dept.) Country Reports on Human Rights practices,  3-11-2020: There was reported discrimination, including employment discrimination, against persons with HIV/AIDS.

On the other hand, Washington Post at 3-1-2019 "An American got sick in Taiwan.  He came back with a tale of the ‘horrors of socialized medicine" named Taiwan's health-care system "socialized medicine", Taiwan is less wealthy than the US, yet it spends less and gets more,  the amount costs for a course of Harvoni treatment and C-section is  $32,114 and $15,106 respectively in the Us, but $2,132 and $1,404 in Taiwan.   An American in Taiwan getting stomach flu was checked by MD within 20 minutes of his arrival  (ref. to https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/03/01/an-american-got-sick-taiwan-he-came-back-with-tale-horrors-socialized-medicine/)  , although the avg. percentage of patients taking 48 hours in emergency room of NTUH awaiting being hospitalized in 2018 is 7.9%, CVA patient may take 24 hours.  Formosa TV news reported at 2-27-2019 that patients usually take 5~7 days or even nearly half month in emergency room of NTUH awaiting being hospitalized The University of Texas ― M.D. Anderson cancer center professor Euishin Edmund Kim, M.D. urged Korean people don't waste their energy flying to the US for medical treatment, because Korea's medical tech. is as good as any other country's.   An article (Apple Daily, Taiwan, 6-22-2015) by Taiwan's Veterans General Hospital physician Dr. Ton (唐宗詠) points out that so many Taiwanese expatriates living abroad (with permanent resident card) and/or  foreign citizens of Taiwanese origin flied a long way back to Taiwan for medical treatment. ――  Taiwan's medical-insurance system costs them much less than that in other countries, e.g.,  the price for a plaster cast in USA  almost equals one month salary of a Taiwanese orthopaedics resident-physician, so, some Taiwanese or Taiwanese American, etc, would rather bear the pain caused by their illness and long-distance trip to save lots of their money. http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20150622/633042/  (包山包海包全球的台灣健保)    The Liberty Times (5-5-2019) : The number of foreign patients coming Taiwan for treatment etc hits new high, 110 thousands more than that of the previous year.

Taiwan's medical & health performance was so successful (e.g. life expectancy, infant mortality and maternal mortality, are better than U.S., although we spent only one-quarter of USD (PPP) in health expenditure.) that former leader of health government, Dr. Ye Ching-chuan, was invited to testify at an US senate committee hearing on this issue  (http://blog.udn.com/yestaipei/18685477) An article by China Medical University (Taiwan) Professor Ma (馬文隆)  stated Taiwanese studies on liver cancer lead the world in the past   (http://gicm.cmu.edu.tw/adv.html )  also proves Taiwan's medical tech. is as good as most countries in the world.  

However, United Daily (經濟日報) editorial, 6-25-2020: The financial situation of Taiwan's healthcare system has recently deteriorated, the govt. may need to increased greatly Taiwanese insurance fee.  United Daily 6-24-2020: National Taiwan University professor 薛承泰: Taiwan's national health insurance buries 'land mines' or 'time bombs' such as lower birth rate and aging society some room inside the system for playing tricks, the difference between insurance rate and benefit payment, etc may resulting in consequences.  Taiwan's Medical and Health Minister (李伯璋) regards increasing national insurance fee as a political issue which is beyond his authority, instead, he focuses on reducing expenditure. United Daily, 10-9-2020 (udn.com/news/story/7266/4923388): former medical deputy chief criticized reducing expenditure by tracking duplicate examinations etc fails to solve big problem, the government has not dealt with the issue of low diagnostic & operation fee, low drug price, low ward fee and low nursing care fee for 25 years, to make Taiwan's hospitals a "sweat factory", the hospitalizing patients even need to be taken care by their family members or illegal foreign workers.  The China Times, 10-30-2020 (chinatimes.com/opinion/20201030000025-262115?chdtv): Taiwan's National Insurance is in "a  state of many diseases".  The government supposes to increase everyone's insurance fee, but the serious problem of nation's low pay might easily stir a strong backlash.  Taiwan loves to use National Insurance as a great international propaganda material, but, the ruling party actually has already treated the issue as a "hot potato", and hence the snow-ball has become bigger and bigger. 

Bloomberg, 12-18-2020
country Health Care Cost

 

GDP%

Health Care Cost


per capita

US 17.1 10246
Swiss 12.3 9956
Cuba 11.7 988
France 11.3 4380
Germany 11.2 5033
Sweden 11 5905
Japan 10.9 4169
Canada 10.6 4755
Norway 10.4 7936
Austria 10.4 4940
Belgium 10.3 4507
Nederland 10.1 4911
Denmark 10.1 5800
UK 9.6 3859
Brasil 9.5 929
Australia 9.2 5332
Finland 9.2 4206
NZ 9.2 3937
Argentina 9.1 1325
Portugal 9.0 1908
Chile 9.0 1382
Spain 8.9 2506
Italy 8.8 2840
Iran 8.7 475
Serbia 8.4 529
Ecuador 8.3 518
Lebanon 8.2 719
Greece 8.0 1517
Korea 7.6 2283
Israel 7.4 3145
Costa Rica 7.3 869
Ireland 7.2 4977
Czech 7.2 1476
Columbia 7.2 459
Hungary 6.9 981
Paraguay 6.7 381
Slovakia 6.7 1186
Taiwan 6.6 1550
Poland 6.5 907

Apple Daily 7-17-2019: Taiwan's healthcare system is on the edge of bankruptcy in 2026, the government's allocation of funds for urgent need is no more than curing the symptom instead of curing the disease.  Next TV news (5-25-2019, 20:44, 壹新聞  壹電視 ) reported that Taiwan government kept adjusting the price of more and more drugs to cover the deficit of medical insurance system, which resulted in more and more brand drugs withdrawing from Taiwan (e.g., TIENAM) , because cheap-price generic drugs made in Taiwan are not as curative effective as brand drugs, Physicians worry there's no good medicines for patients ....  Besides, Apple Daily (6-4-2017): Taiwan medical service's critical problem ―― Preventive Health-Care service is behind.   The China Times, (7-4-2017) : "patients centered" is nothing but a slogan.   Apple Daily, 11-10-2020: It's a reality in today's Taiwan that the omniscient government absolutely manipulate each national's personal data which were collected all the time since he(she) was born, e.g., each person's health & medical data/information was forced without agreement of the party to be opened on purpose of business and academic use(澄社).


Furthermore,
  Guardian (UK), 10-31-2020: Now, Taipei's people browse, busk and greet each other with handshakes and hugs. It feels normal.  However, Taiwan has already "exported" dozens COVID-19 infected cases to a number of foreign countries, not sure yet who should be responsible for this, according to United Daily, editorial, 10-31-2020. https://udn.com/news/story/7338/4977422?from=udn-catehotnews_ch2

New York Post  4-25-2020 : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian.", "almost everyone is tracked.".  Taiwanese govt. responded at 4-28-2020 that Taiwanese would like to cooperate with our policy.  But the truth is Taiwan's "Big Brother" already sneaked into numerous families in the name of  Epidemic Prevention, by an injunction violating Tort Law and domineering over Constitution (凌駕憲法的侵權禁令) , without having noticed all nationals, in accordance with United Daily, editorial at 5-7-2020.   The ironic thing is after lifting Coronavirus Lockdown, Japan doesn't trust Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention, and has not put "democratic" Taiwan on their welcome list, many other countries did same thing to Taiwan.  The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020, 6-25-2020) analyzed one main reason is Taiwan rejects mass testing, even small-scale testing, the number of test per million people is 3000+, ranked world No. 138, about same level as that of African countries, even African Luanda tested double number of Taiwan's.  A famous National Taiwan University M.D. expert endorsed for Taiwan's policy :   there's no any CovID-19 in Taiwan, 3 weeks later, a Japanese girl staying Taiwan for 4 months was detected positive in Japan's airport.   Therefore, those free flow of information can be suspicious and may endanger the entire world.  United Daily 7-16-2020: To keep good record,  Taiwan takes 'ostrich' strategy (avoid mass testing). According to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider). Bill Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine: The prevalence of asymptomatic transmission doesn't bode well for global containment efforts.  All studies (CNBC 5-7-2020, Singapore's Blackbox Research and Toluna, Forbes 6-5-2020, 4-16-2020: The Deep Knowledge Group) concluded China is better than Taiwan on CovID-19 safety countries rankings.  Apple Daily 7-8-2020:  expert (中央研究院研究員何美鄉) warned that many CovID-19 infected people without symptom in Taiwan.

●  The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020) : world don't trust Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention achievement  ――  Although Japan, Greece, Australia, New Zealand lifted Its Coronavirus Lockdown, their tourist-welcome-list includes Korea, China, but not Taiwan.  Since the very beginning Taiwan rejects mass testing, even small-scale testing,  the percentage (the number of test per million people is 3000+, ) was ranked world No. 138.   But according to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider).  Bill Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine: The prevalence of asymptomatic transmission doesn't bode well for global containment efforts.  Taiwan Yahoo News (8-6-2020, news.yahoo.com/自家人開第一槍何志偉逆時中入境一律篩檢-002543455.html) reported even ruling party's lawmaker now urges giving testing to all visitors going thru immigration.
Taiwan News 6-26-2020, United Daily 6-27-2020: Following news that a Japanese student tested positive for coronavirus after returning from southern Taiwan on Wednesday (June 24), many Taiwanese expressed concerns over a potential undetected community cluster. Voices have also begun to surge from communities calling for general virus testing for all individuals entering the island country.  Taiwan CECC insists general virus testing unnecessary ... UDN 7-16-2020:  the only means govt. got are containment and wearing mask.  United Daily 6-30-2020 editorial: Taiwanese experts suggesting general testing were attacked by internet army for that reason.

The China Times 6-25-2020 editorial: Taiwan has no same capacity and experience as Beijing does to face something serious, it will be horrible in case CovID-19 epidemic break out.  https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20200624003961-262101?chdtv

Apple Daily (蘋果日報, 4-15-2019), United Daily (聯合報, 4-14-2019) ... : Going easy route, lacking of ethics, MDs advised using Da Vinci for even a minor operation,  38 hospitals were suspected of making false report about Da Vinci surgery to illegally obtain benefits from national insurance up to NTD 3.5 billion.

The Liberty Times, (9-29-2018) : Taipei mayor Ko: Taiwan's medical services all aim for profit, the problem of politics there is everyone tells right from wrong, but no one wants to do the right thing.   In Taiwan, the better medical knowledge, the less profit M.D.s curing patient of disease by simpler methods can not make good money, instead, they tried to convince you to do Hemodialysis, Positive airway pressure, ... or even to stay in intensive care unit (ICU) ...  LTN 11-27-'15: medical problem is political problem, the whole medical systems were manipulated by mega-corporation, and no one wants to make any change ...  The Liberty Times (LTN) 11-26-'15: Taipei mayor Ko said physicians or medical Doctors of Taiwan just don't speak the truth, otherwise they will be killed, or be accused...  Ko doesn't like to join even the most important meetings of National Taiwan University Hospital ―― in there, either "paper over the cracks" or taking chance to struggle each other.

The China Times, (7-4-2017) : former leader of Taiwan University Hospital criticized that many hospitals' management is only for profit-making, hospital managers should win by virtue, physicians should advance their knowledge and tech. all the time, otherwise "patients centered" is nothing but a slogan.  

Apple Daily, (8-18-2018): "The rich see Doctors, the poor enter grave (有錢看病、沒錢等死)"? / former medical gov. leader 楊志良。  Popular TV star 白冰冰 said (June 2017) : "The rich cut in a queue to see Doctors, the poor are on the way to die (有錢免排、無錢等埋)" !   

United Daily News (9-28-2018): <我們都是病友>: ... The administration and part of Taiwan's medical circle have not treated patients' rights as central issue (病人為中心)   / 楊志良

●  Apple Daily, 12-30-2017: Amending the law of Taiwan's medical services is criticized as "Decriminalization".   Taiwan's medical-service environment is getting worse (台灣醫院免責? 醫療環境再惡化).  Patients in Taiwan will be difficult to put to the proof in their legal cases.

● United Daily News (5-30-2017): The biggest problem of Taiwan's medical care is too short diagnostic time, without a completed examination in most cases, usually, patients are already in serious condition when symptom became clear. / Dr. Huang D.F., president of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center.
● Apple Daily (6-4-2017): Taiwan's critical problem ―― Preventive Health-Care service is behind. / former medical gov leader Young (楊志良).

A famous M.D., Hsu or Xu Da-Fu (許達夫)'s book "Exposing the truth of modern medical circle in Taiwan - misdiagnosis & medical errors" ("誤診誤醫", published by the China Times, 2012) criticizes :
   (1)
Taiwan's hospitals focus on profit/benefit and ignore patients' rights (in Ch.1 "Taiwan's medical system is ill")   ―   The whole medical circle already went the wrong route, it gonna be too late if most influential and enthusiastic persons do not spend efforts on completely changing our medical education to boot physicians' medical spirits.
   (2)
Medical students only learn Pathology and the way how their professors doing malicious competition and internal struggle for the power and money, and lack of Ethics knowledge as well as Humanism quality.

  Taipei City mayor Ko : Taiwan has not established a culture of honesty, each time being in National Taiwan University Hospital's meeting, the 1st thing cross mind always is "who performed the operation (surgery) ?", M.D.s always take it personally ... ( '無法真正做到對事不對人')  /  buzzorange.com/2015/05/29 " The phony culture in Taipei City Hall - 整個社會都在說謊?!柯文哲揭露市府假面文化" http://www.chinatimes.com/realtimenews/20170611002397-260407

 

 

  <

top rankings on US Yahoo, Bing, Google, Euro. MetaGER.de, Taiwan's Yahoo, etc, tests in  2019 ~present

 

pic. : This websites group was ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "physicians in Taiwan"  test at  2-12-2021 

 

 

 

 

Bloomberg, 12-18-2020
country Health Care Cost

 

GDP%

Health Care Cost


per capita

US 17.1 10246
Swiss 12.3 9956
Cuba 11.7 988
France 11.3 4380
Germany 11.2 5033
Sweden 11 5905
Japan 10.9 4169
Canada 10.6 4755
Norway 10.4 7936
Austria 10.4 4940
Belgium 10.3 4507
Nederland 10.1 4911
Denmark 10.1 5800
UK 9.6 3859
Brasil 9.5 929
Australia 9.2 5332
Finland 9.2 4206
NZ 9.2 3937
Argentina 9.1 1325
Portugal 9.0 1908
Chile 9.0 1382
Spain 8.9 2506
Italy 8.8 2840
Iran 8.7 475
Serbia 8.4 529
Ecuador 8.3 518
Lebanon 8.2 719
Greece 8.0 1517
Korea 7.6 2283
Israel 7.4 3145
Costa Rica 7.3 869
Ireland 7.2 4977
Czech 7.2 1476
Columbia 7.2 459
Hungary 6.9 981
Paraguay 6.7 381
Slovakia 6.7 1186
Taiwan 6.6 1550
Poland 6.5 907
 
Bloomberg, 12-18-2020
life expectancy 年齡
HK 84.93
Japan 84.21
Swiss 83.75
Spain 83.43
Italy 83.35
Singapore 83.15
Israel 82.80
Norway 82.76
Australia 82.75
France  82.72
S Korea 82.63
Sweden 82.56
Ireland 82.26
Canada 81.95
NZ 81.86
Nederland 81.81
Greece 81.79
Finland 81.73
Austria  81.69
Belgium 81.60
Portugal 81.32
UK 81.26
Denmark 80.95
Germany 80.89
Taiwan 80.69
Costa Rica 80.10
Chile 80.04

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

     Finance Yahoo, 12-30-2020 (finance.yahoo.com/news/retire-taiwan-costs-visas-more-215449948.html ):       Taiwan ranks 11th globally in the healthcare efficiency index of Knoema.com, and Numbeo ranks the nation’s healthcare system as the best in the world.

A legal resident of is eligible for the NHI program. It includes coverage for inpatient and outpatient care, prescription drugs, dental care (excluding orthodontics and prosthodontics) and more. Taiwan doesn’t offer free healthcare for expats, but payments will come in the form of copayments. Usually, you can expect to pay 10% to 20% of treatment. You may also have to pay out-of-pocket costs if you choose any other healthcare treatment outside of the NHI coverage...

 
  to fill the coverage gap, you may have to purchase private Taiwan expat healthcare insurance. Additionally, it can take a few months to complete the NHI registration ...

 

 

 

 

 

        

pic. left : No.1 "medical Doctors in Taiwan" on Baidu of China ,  2021-5-31, 2021-5-5, 2021-4-27, 2021-4-10, 3-10-2021, 2-12-2021;

pic. right: No.1 "physicians in Taiwan" on  Baidu of China , 2021-5-5, 2021-4-27, 2021-4-10, 3-10-2021, 2-12-2021

 

 

pic. : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  test at   6-30-2020, 6-1-2020, 1-20-2020

 

 

 

pic. : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  test at   11-11-2019

 

 

 

           

pic. left : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Bing by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  at  10-18-2019, 7-4-2019,  5-19-2019; 
pic.
right : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Bing  by keyword "physicians in Taiwan"  at  10-18-2019,  7-4-2019, 5-19-2019

 

 

 

 

 
 serious Corruption - ready to pay a bribe?

 

According to <Transparency International> studies ( July 9, 2013), "Have you or anyone in your household paid a bribe to one of these 8 services in the last 12 months?"
 
Taiwanese people think the institution needed to be paid bribery most is judiciary system, second is Taiwan's medical and health services, the number of Taiwanese paying a bribe is higher than global average. ( Apple Daily 7-10-2013,http://www.appledaily.com.tw/appledaily/article/headline/20130710/35139300/ )
 

<Transparency International> of Germany also found the percentage(%) of Taiwanese respondents who felt medical and health services were one of corrupt/extremely corrupt institutions in this country/territory is 47%. 

 

CNA (Taiwan), 4-8-2021: The president of Taiwan Adventist General Hospital was involved in national insurance fraud case. cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202104080203.aspx  The Liberty Times (1-10-2017): The hospital M.D. got brokerage or kickback in various forms -  e.g., money, presents/gifts, joining international seminar or conference sponsored by medicine business, or money that contributed to some foundations ... It's a complicated Symbiotic relationship (benefit each other).

 

PS

 
  Apple Daily (蘋果日報, 4-15-2019), United Daily (聯合報, 4-14-2019) ... : Going easy route, lacking of ethics,  38 hospitals were suspected of making false report about Da Vinci surgery to illegally obtain benefits from national insurance up to NTD 3.5 billion.

Apple Daily (蘋果日報, 12-12-2019, headline news), United Daily (聯合報, 12-12-2019) ... : 6 hospitals used fake accounts to apply insurance overpayments ( among them, 北市聯醫 applied for NT55,000 thousands,  by in total 32000 cases, most in Taiwan history...) from the government.   

 

◆   United Daily News  (聯合報), 7-12-2019: Control Yuan (gov.) corrects National Taiwan University Hospital for taking a passive, negative attitude toward a national insurance scam (by NTUH physician) and not checking carefully a wider range of this issue, not taking any measure to prevent this sort things from happening again, since the suite case was under investigations, the hospital long term was careless of administration and controls so that the suspect can signed fake documents for making illegal money.   NTUH expressed it's done by the MD himself and the hospital will review all related procedures. (brief, for precise meaning pls. see the pic. above)

 

pic.: Control Yuan (gov.) corrected National Taiwan University Hospital / UDN 2019

 

 

 

 

pic.: 東森電視; Global News TV - 寰宇綜合, 3-21-2018, 6:40 pm "醫師好辣" - "unspoken secrets in Taiwan's operation rooms":  Patients usually prefer the first operation in each day, this happened that 3 patients all paid bribery to the famous surgeons for having the 1st operation, and all of them had it ......

 

The finding of the 2013 Global Corruption Barometer (GCB),  ( the Gallup Poll to interview 114,000 people in 107 countries all over the world): 36% of  people (surveyed in TW) who had used any of eight government services in the past year had paid a bribe (the number is higher than global average).    <NOWnews> , (7.10.2013)–  Taiwan is the 18th worst corruption country in 95 countries surveyed. (重度貪污國家第18名)  <Apple Daily> (7.11.2013): Apple daily's survey found 75.07% Taiwanese people think corruption in Taiwan is actually worse than GCB's report.

 

<Transparency International> , Taiwan,   Dec 9, '05
    
Taiwan's Corruption Index : medical 32%
     ps: this proved Taiwanese medical service is a long lasting rotten circle.

 

     National Health Insurance committee members think Taiwan's Admin. Department treat  National Health Insurance as their own gold-mine or pocket money - withdraw it as much as possible (成了自己的金庫 予取予求)

 

 2.  worse Medicine

       Next TV news (5-25-2019, 20:44 / 壹新聞  壹電視) reported that Taiwan government kept adjusting the price of more and more drugs to cover the deficit of medical insurance system, which resulted in more and more international brand drugs withdrawing from Taiwanese market (e.g., TIENAM) .   Behind the slogan "the price of medicines of Taiwan is cheapest in the world" is the cheap-price generic drugs made in Taiwan are not as curative effective as brand drugs, because Taiwan's drug companies don't insist on strict quality control on every process, and will not "tighten nerves" after having official permissions from the government.   Physicians worry there's no good medicines for patients ...  In April 2019, Taiwan government continued to adjust the price of 7470 items of medicines, furthermore, the hospitals kept haggling with the drug companies (e.g., the gov. declares certain drug NTD10, the hospitals cut it down to NTD 7 ), the price difference became main profit for the hospitals... ( brief )

       The Apple Daily (6-30-2018): Medicine (drug store) is a criminal business for their entire life.
       The Apple Daily (2-20-2016, Prime News): according to clinical experiences, many generic drugs are not as effective as brand drugs...
       TVBS news reported at 7-15-2015 that (http://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/news-608090/) in order to maximize the profit,  Taiwanese hospitals always cut down the price while purchasing medicines from pharmaceutical factories, this results in international brand drug companies are/were not willing to sell their brand-name medicines to Taiwan, therefore, the quality of prescription medicines in Taiwan is from bad to worse (用藥品質越來越差) .   Former Minister of Health (楊志良) criticized that Taiwanese hospitals do not like to improve medical employee's (M.D.s and nurses) welfare by using their surplus profit.   Many hospitals run their business by "medicine to cover medical" strategy, which is, earning profit by medicine price differences to cover hospital's expenses.   If things go on this way, Taiwanese patients will not have good brand-name medicines even being willing to pay on own dimes in the future, more and more international drug companies may pull back from Taiwan's market for unreasonable high medicine price disparities Apple Daily of Taiwan reported at 6-22-2015 that Taiwan's hospitals already used medicines made in Taiwan to replace int'l brand stuffs, and then, recently even don't like to buy some local's medicines (最近甚至連台廠藥都做不下去), till now, money can't buy some important antibiotic medicines.

        The United Daily (9-1-2015)'s article "medicine is cheaper than candy" (by 楊志良)Almost all International pharmaceutical factories/companies had already withdrawn their business from Taiwan many years ago, Those companies having brand drugs within term of a patent show no interests in Taiwan's market,  This "Black Hole" resulted in "bad medicines/drugs drive out good"...

        The United Daily, the Apple Daily (9-3-2015, Prime News):  Taiwanese government's new policy - patients paying the part not covered by NHI use brand drugs, is criticized as creating a "class distinctions" (class antagonism), but some cases found generic drugs are not as effective as brand drugs, UDN also mentions medical government lacks of ability to admin. the bigger and bigger drugs/medical device market paid at patient's own expense...

 

 


 

 

 
pic. above: Medical human rights in Taiwan

pic. above: one surgeon performs
 many operations simultaneously - happened quite often in Taiwan

  
Dr.Xu's  book   / 
by The
China Times 

 

 

 

 

 

3.  Surgery

United Daily (聯合報, headline news, 5-11-2019):  unspoken secrets inside operation rooms: Many hospitals reused expensive expendables, some smaller hospitals reused cheap expendables, like medical gauze, suture, etc, the patients under general anesthesia knew nothing and hence were exposed the risk of infection.
United Daily (聯合報,  10-7-2019): 70,000 pieces of illegal medical appliances (TAD, plate of bone) were sold to 200 hospitals/clinics ...

Apple Daily (9-18-2017) reported that "fake surgery" (substitute-surgeon operates illegally) did happen in Chang Gung Mem. Hospital, Taiwan.

Apple Daily (5-13-2015) reported that Taiwanese people have an "Obsession" ―  famous is best, hence, an evil trend "one surgeon performs many operations simultaneously" (「跳台開刀」) prevails, which is a long-lasting cooperate module  ――  a best-known surgeon-physician walks and looks around several operating tables in different operation rooms (all are in his name), and selects a major one to perform a most important part of that surgical procedure, the rest are taken over by 'unknown or less famous' physicians.   (http://www.appledaily.com.tw/appledaily/article/headline/20150513/36547459/)

A famous M.D., Hsu or Xu Da-Fu (許達夫)'s book "Exposing the truth of modern medical circle in Taiwan - misdiagnosis & medical errors" ("誤診誤醫", published by the China Times, 2012) also criticized this by a real example, a patient complained : the substituted surgeon was not the one on the agreement document with patient's and his in-charge physician's signatures, that substituted doctor even did not know which part needed to be performed operation when he was there in the surgical suite, after the surgery, the patient's wound has become inflamed... Dr. Xu explained this sort of stories indeed happened frequently (經常發生) in today's hospitals, particularly, in major hospitals, because each best-known medical doctor has many patients, it's hard for the doctor to take care of everyone, hence, substituted surgeons doing operations for best-known M.D.s is quite often (常見), particularly, for those famous physicians in charge also working as teachers, lots of things keep them very busy.   Dr. Xu suggested every patient must keeps in mind who is your M.D. in charge, and if you see a substituted doctor showing up in surgical suite, just refuse him to do the operation, unless you are in an emergent situation

 

東森電視; Global News TV - 寰宇綜合, 3-21-2018, 6:40 pm  <unspoken secrets in Taiwan's operation room> "醫師好辣 - 開刀房不告訴你的事", discussed the phenomenon  "one Doctor performs several operations at the same time", and  small Doctors perform operations for top Doctors without notifying patients

 

Full text : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gT2p7b4ZTQg

pic. left: In medical centers or large hospitals, you may gave surgery by "students",  in small hospital, you may have operation by "master teachers" .
pic. left: It's very possible that resident-Doctors (sometimes, or even CR  MD) replaced top MD to perform operations without notifying patients.
pic. left: The larger hospitals, the more possible small MDs do operations for top MDs .
pic. left: even in training-purpose cases,  quite many "teacher" MDs still leave operation suites.
pic. left: It was this way years ago, security guards did operation, MDs became their "assistant".

 

  Apple Daily ( 蘋果日報 5-13-2015) reported that a famous physician (ranking top 100 in Business Weekly) in Taiwan's Taichung Veterans General Hospital performed 5 operations at same time, that caused a woman's death and his new  name - suspicious crime of fraud. (http://www.appledaily.com.tw/appledaily/article/headline/20150513/36547449/)

(中榮名醫同時五台刀 涉詐欺  害婦送命 疑沒進開刀房也領獎金 / 

廉政署鴨子划水蒐證數月後,發現《商業周刊》百大良醫沈男 兩年內疑有十件跳台開刀情況)

 

 

4. Bad privacy status in Taiwan's hospitals
  
   The Liberty Times, 3-15-2021 (news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/3467139):  5 Nurses took pictures of the female patients’ private parts on hospital operation room, and added some funny remarks, then uploaded them to the online social media IG, ignoring Article 72 of the "Medical Law" (護理人員行為可能涉違反「醫療法」第72條不得無故洩漏病人病情及健康資訊,可處5萬至25萬罰鍰;也恐涉違反「護理人員法」28條護理人員不得洩漏他人秘密,可罰6000元至3萬元)
      
The China Times, 7-3-2017: Taiwan's regulations for patients' privacy is almost no legal effect, hospitals don't take it serious.  e.g., a 30 years old female patient was hospitalized in a very famous hospital 榮總, after she striped her clothes for MD's diagnosis, more than 10 male and female physicians came in, one student (probably intern) took picture by cell phone, the patient can't stand all these and burst out crying .....
     ◆
The United Daily News (聯合新聞) 1-3-2017 <Where's Taiwan's medical ethics ?>  : Leaking patients' medical records is a normal social behaviour in Taiwan - In Taiwan, journalists are not used to respect patients' privacy... our hospitals' members do not know very clearly the principle of protecting patients' privacy...(黃達夫)
      
Apple Daily (3-5-2017): A large hospital's nurse took a picture of the patient without any permission during brain operation in surgical suite and then spread that photo through Instagram.  That nurse also remarked "It's so exciting to see human's brain!".

     ◆ Apple Daily (9-28-2019): about 3 years ago, communist Chinese pro. hackers already broke in Taiwan's top hospitals' computer systems (NTUH, 榮總, etc) and stole all patients' medical records ...

 

   

 

 

  pic.: United Daily News (1-3-2017)

 


5.  Ethics, Ethics,  Ethics

      
      Apple Daily , 11-9-2020: 
a physical therapist​ of Cheng-Hsin General Hospital (Taipei 振興醫院), a famous hospital, committed a crime of sexual harassment (made a pass at her private part, etc) while doing massage upon a female patient. tw.appledaily.com/local/20201109/6J43CZ653VBS3PZZKDBA4FK3XA/
      U
nited Daily, 1-12-2020, editorial opinion: A Taiwanese M.D. gave drugs causing drowsiness to whoever (patient) supports different political party's presidential election candidate.
    
 According to the book, < Disease and society ― Taiwan searches its conscience from experiences during SARS crisis>  (book title : <疫病與社會:台灣歷經SARS風暴之醫學與人文反省 >, author/ 蔡甫昌、江宜樺(former Prime Minster)etc Publisher/ National Taiwan University, Medical School,  Sept. 2012 )

       Many medical school students' parents scared SARS and ignored the situation that insufficient numbers of doctors confronting SARS,  hence, those parents pressed the government to pull 300 intern students out of hospital by reporting "something" to the Control Yuan that Educational government already neglected its duty.
       
 Some state hospital paused emergency and regular medical services (門診), about 1/3 clinics there stopped their services by all kinds of "reasons" you can imagine.  124 nurses in a medical center in Southern Taiwan refused to take care of SARS patients and then resigned, some M.D.s also resigned for the same reason.
      
 Some medical center found hospital infection and  took "block & isolate " strategy, the next day more and more patients at ward escaped from that hospital, Taiwanese government received reports from all major medical centers in Northern, Central, Southern Taiwan, the hospital president,  and Infection Control directors concealed SARS outbreak within the hospital to avoid losing face, avoid dropping profit-performance, and/or avoid being sealed off the hospital,  this serious situations became major cause that Taiwan's SARS continued to spread larger and larger.     
      
 The work ethics, concealing SARS outbreak, delaying reporting to center government or rejecting SARS patients to avoid profiting worse are the most important reasons resulting in hospital onset of infection and spreading SARS from bad to worse in Taiwan. 

 

 

  Mass media reported a few years ago that very few NTU medical students like to take medical-ethics sort course, although Medical educators are increasingly stressing the importance of training in the ethical issues encountered in clinical practice ( National ChenKun University -  http://ped.hosp.ncku.edu.tw/chinese/xoops/modules/tinyd/index.php?id=11).  

 

 Taiwanese personality/character, pls click for details... No.1 ranking on google for a long time!

 

6.  PhysiciansPoliticssociety
    
  United Daily, 1-12-2020, editorial opinion: During presidential election campaign, some citizen supporting different political party intended to use NTUH rest-room but was driven out by NTU medical college student.   

        FTV(民視)<Taiwan History(台灣演義)> 4-16-2017 , "Taiwan University Medical School"  (for details pls ref to youtube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLf2VRok0uRO2bH10tnVg9rWCIGeddXcSk)

              

National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH)  

●  Taiwan University Hospital had major medical achievements, including Asian No.1 records

 

Taiwan physicians social status became lower

 

●  Taiwanese physicians' social status is not as good as before

(After National Health Insurance putting into effect,  Taiwanese people's consciousness rises, and usually make treatment requests to their M.D.,.. resulting in Physician-Patient relationship under tension)

   
         ●  
    "High physicians cure the nation" / Former NTU dean Lee (李鎮源) urged freedom of expression and human rights in Nation's Day of '91, and called physicians together, eventually, only 50- out of 1000+ NTUH physicians joined that protest.   Reports pointed out Taiwanese physicians're afraid of speaking freely which may damages their future, since so many elites were killed in 228 political event, some victims got serious consequences for sort of minor mistakes, all these experiences and perspective deep rooted in some medical people's mind, and became motive to fight back.    

 

 Taiwan University Medical School lacks humanism thoughts

(Taiwan's current social value system is rapidly changing the culture in medical circle  / Dean of NTU medical school (張上淳) advised that
always keep in mind a love-based, "patient-centered", and humanistic-care thinking
 )

   

   

 in Taiwan's medical and health-care system's mistake in fighting CovID-19   

 Full text: CovID on Taiwan

 

  New York Times, 2021-5-20: This Day Was Bound to Come’ / border controls had shielded it from the worst of the pandemic. But new variants and a slow vaccine rollout gave the virus an opening.  nytimes.com/2021/05/20/world/asia/taiwan-covid-outbreak.html

  TIME, 2021-5-20: a False Sense of Security, and a Little Secret Tea, Broke Down Taiwan's COVID-19 Defenses  time.com/6050316/taiwan-covid-19-outbreak-tea/

  CBS, 2021-5-20: Taipei mayor says "The epidemic situation in Taiwan will be like a tight string: Under high pressure, it may snap at any time" cbsnews.com/news/taiwan-covid-cases-previous-success-story-now-record-coronavirus-surge/

  The Guardian (UK), 2021-5-16: one of the world’s leading pandemic responses prompted partial lockdown measures in two cities... The level 3 alert covers about 6.5 million of Taiwan’s 24 million people ... (ps: CBS, 2021-5-20: covers entire Taiwan) had not implemented more stringent restrictions (level 4 alert) because residents might resist...  guidelines for hospitals to prioritise symptomatic Covid cases, saying dedicated beds were beginning to fill.    theguardian.com/world/2021/may/16/lockdowns-and-panic-buying-in-taiwan-as-covid-cases-rise)

 L.A. Times, 2021-5-16: Taiwan, once a pandemic success story faces worst outbreak    latimes.com/world-nation/story/2021-05-15/taiwan-covid19-pandemic-outbreak    


 Business Insider, 2021-5-20: New York Times piece warns that Taiwan's "high walls" may risk "isolating Taiwan economically and politically," and suggests that a strong border policy cannot and should not be a long-term strategy...Taiwan has prided itself in its transparency in containing the virus, yet double standards and stigma still found their way. businessinsider.com/taiwan-covid-19-paradise-health-politics-policy-cdc-2021-5

 

 

Guardian (UK), 10-31-2020: Now, Taipei's people browse, busk and greet each other with handshakes and hugs. It feels normal.   However, Taiwan has already "exported" dozens COVID-19 infected cases to a number of foreign countries, not sure yet who should be responsible for this,
according to United Daily, editorial, 10-31-2020

 

Apple Daily 7-8-2020:  expert (中央研究院研究員何美鄉) warned that many infected people without symptom in Taiwan.

 

New York Post  4-25-2020 : Taiwan deals with CovID-19 with "a lot more authoritarian.", "almost everyone is tracked.".  Taiwanese govt. responded at 4-28-2020 that Taiwanese would like to cooperate with our policy.  But the truth is Taiwan's "Big Brother" already sneaked into numerous families in the name of  Epidemic Prevention, by an injunction violating Tort Law and domineering over Constitution (凌駕憲法的侵權禁令) , without having noticed all nationals, in accordance with United Daily, editorial at 5-7-2020.   The ironic thing is after lifting Coronavirus Lockdown, Japan doesn't trust Taiwan's Epidemic Prevention, and has not put "democratic" Taiwan on their welcome list, many other countries did same thing to Taiwan.  The China Times, editorial (6-6-2020, 6-25-2020) analyzed one main reason is Taiwan rejects mass testing, even small-scale testing, the number of test per million people is 3000+, ranked world No. 138, about same level as that of African countries, even African Luanda tested double number of Taiwan's.  A famous National Taiwan University M.D. expert endorsed for Taiwan's policy :  there's no any CovID-19 in Taiwan, 3 weeks later, a Japanese girl staying Taiwan for 4 months was detected positive in Japan's airport.   Therefore, those free flow of information can be suspicious  and may endanger the world people According to Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, USA, "somewhere between 25% and 50%" of people infected with the new coronavirus may never show symptoms or fall ill — but can still transmit the illness to others (4-15-2020, Business Insider). Bill Gates in the New England Journal of Medicine: The prevalence of asymptomatic transmission doesn't bode well for global containment efforts.  All studies (CNBC 5-7-2020, Singapore's Blackbox Research and Toluna, Forbes 6-5-2020, 4-16-2020: The Deep Knowledge Group) concluded China is better than Taiwan on CovID-19 safety countries rankings.
 

 

 

 

7.   Nurse  Taiwan Hospitals' illegal situation was/is serious

 
 TVBS 3-29-2019 in NTUH,  MDs of each wards come emergency room to 'pick up' patients to be hospitalized, however, if you select an old patient with multiple diseases or bad daily life functions ( e.g., incontinence of urine or feces), the nurse(s) may give you her attitude to make you sick ...  Taipei Mayor Ko ( 柯文哲) criticized ... for details pls. read NTUH 7D  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD_BLkZky00

 

 

 

 

◆  Some nurses are patient and nice,  some others are not .  Take Taiwan's probably best  (AIT once called it  a Jewel on the Crown, but changed  the name later ), NTUH, as an example, nurses in wards usually are good,  but in emergency room, some failed to have blood-draw job done (feb. '18), some got medicines stuck in NG tube (July '19, but she has strong sense of responsibility to follow hospital's regulations to feed patient with medicine, some others just gave medicine powder to patient's families) ...   At 7-2-2019 about 11:40 am I experienced  a  female nurse made a sudden loud noise (combining sort of  roaring and horselaugh ) while passing by a very old patient with heart failure, it's short of  basic medical specialty   !!    besides, I saw hard-working ones as well.  

According to <The Liberty times> (2015-03-30) and <The New Lens>( https://www.thenewslens.com/article/14636),  The ratio of nurses and patients in NTUH emergency room, 1: 14+,  is same as that of  a "combat hospital", which worsen the relationships among patients, nurses and medical Doctors.

 

    United Daily, 5-6-2019: One dietitian props the hospital up, hard working environment results in 60% of dietitians chose not to work in the hospitals 

 

      

         ◆ <United Daily News> (3-3-2017) : Unlike developed countries, Taiwan legislation has not protected nurses/patients ratio.
         ◆
<The Liberty Times> 5-12-2017 : New labor policy ("一例一休") worsen the the ratio of nurse and patients in medical centers and regional hospitals.
      
<United Daily News> (12-31-2013,  <台灣醫安問題 須誠實面對> >) : The ratio of nurse and patients, 1:20, was heard many times...

        <The Liberty Times> reported at 5-11-2015 -  Taiwan hospitals' means for exploitation of nurses include :

                  Voluntary Servitude Contract to sell oneself (綁約賣身契) , heavy work only get you salary lower than that in previous year  ...
                   
 Nurses were asked to give up vacation for overtime works, or for on-call working a shift on duty, all these extra working hours were converted to an outcry price, may be as low as NT50 (USD1.7 or so) per hour.
                   
   performance bonuses (「績效獎金」), allowance (「工作津貼」) ,  faked salary on book...  all became hospitals' weapon to control nurses.   Nurses can't get overtime payment, which can not be found by routine labor-checks. ( 加班沒有加班費,而勞動檢查也永遠查不到的結果。)


       
 ◆   Fake nurses/patients ratio.  The Evaluation of The Effectiveness of The Hospitals by government can not find something like nurse working in the name of  technician, nurse-license was used for fake statistics...

        details pls. ref. to Taiwan enrolled nurses general union (護理工會) and Taiwan Labour Front (台灣勞工陣線) web-site http://labor.ngo.tw/news/news-now/189-news20150511  or Liberty Times  http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/life/breakingnews/1313447
      
 ◆   The capital (management) side completely controls unreasonable payments,  in spite of that the government reiterated on-call time should be count for working hours, but investigation this time found 96% nurses' on-call time has not included in their wages, Taiwan's hospitals seriously violated the law.  (違法的問題非常嚴重。)
       
◆  Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批) at 9-27-2015:  The ratio of nurses and patients in Taiwan's hospitals is absurd. (都太離譜了)
        ◆ 
<The China Times > (1-12-2016): Taipei City
found all hospitals it check violated the labor law.  
        ◆ 
<The Liberty Times>, <The China Times >, <The United Daily> at 12-30-2015: 87% of Taiwan's large hospitals had surplus in their balance sheet of 2015, but staff/labor costs decreased from 45.86% downto 40.06%, medical staffs are still in a "Sweat factory" status, hospitals used their surplus on "arms race" -  aesthetic medicine, Proton Therapy, Heavy particle therapy, high-end medical check, The da Vinci sys., etc. to attract people to pay on their own dimes so that hospitals will have more surplus, besides, medical resources concentrate on metro large hospitals, it's unfair to remote countryside patients, in the future, it is expected to exhibit a polarizing outcome ― middle and smaller sized hospitals likely will closed, only small clinics and metro hospitals left or survived.

ps:  TW  amended the law http://www.chinatimes.com/newspapers/20170407000409-260114

 

 

 

 The possibility of that some nurses (and some top MDs, even the admin. sys) of major medical-center hospitals are political lap-dogs can not be excluded.  They are not just doing nothing (join protests) to avoid damaging their future, but doing the powerful's bidding to create a 'bright future'.

  

8.  Abuse or too-little-use medical resources

       
        <Liberty Times>, 8-19-2019, headline news:  "CT scan, MRI were used for mild cases - getting cold or sore throat",  Taiwan government corrects hospitals using CT and MRI in the number 130 thousands for mild cases, the "abusing" rate of 92 hospitals is too high.
        <Ettoday>, 8-19-2019: In 2017, one person did CT scan 24 times in a single year. <United Daily News> (12-31-2013) by president of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center : after a surgical operation, a woman cried piteously 8 hours for belly pain and then died, there's no any medical doctor came to take a look at her even her families look for help 9 times before her death...  For saving some money, some hospital admitted using recycle-bag for tube-feeding ... 

          
<Apple Daily> of Taiwan ( 6-22-2015 ) points out in some cases acesodyne (painkiller止痛藥) is not allowed to be given for some terminally ill cancer patients in Hospice-palliative care after his having signed a give-up-emergency-treatment agreement.  It's wrong that hospitals think money higher than humanity.

       <The Liberty Times> reported at 5-26-2015 that Taipei mayor Ko expressed Taiwan's hospitals abused ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), taking National Taiwan University Hospital as example, till now ECMO has been used for 1800 times, 10% of them won't save those patients' life - from the first place they should know.
         <
Exposing the truth of modern medical circle in Taiwan>: Taiwan's M.D.s are accustomed to give patients lots of prescription medicine more than needed.

9.  lots of FAKE medical records

         <United Daily News> (12-31-2013,  <台灣醫安問題 須誠實面對> >) article <Facing Taiwan's medical safety issue> by Dr. Huang D.F., president of Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Cancer Center : In addition to those fakes created by Taiwanese government and enterprises, one more "fake" has been hidden in extreme dark side - that's Taiwan's medical record.  The patient's record usually is used for medical studies and NHI benefit package, it look OK in form, but the quality is from bad to worse.  Taiwanese government usually see only with one eye on or turn a blind eye to fake or cheating things as long as you have contribution to Taiwan's GDP...

        <United Daily News> (12-11-2013,  <台灣假的病歷 誰來監督?> (章貢):) : Fake medical records of patients include - 1. made by copy & paste way,  2. evading the crucial part &  lacking of clinical symptom, 3. irrelevant or not speaking in details, 4. creating something from nothing (so patients will be in bad situation for any legal case in the future), 5. substituting on for another (by unqualified staffs), 6. add/delete/modify something - for evaluation, investigation or legal problems. (1.蕭規曹隨、複製貼上式 2. 避重就輕、缺乏臨床症狀 3. 牛頭馬嘴、語焉不詳  4. 無中生有、讓病人處法律劣勢 5. 移花接木式(由尚未立法的護理師等,甚至什也不是的記錄員處理拼湊 )  6. 塗改增修式 - 遇評鑑、抽審、或法律糾紛時如此處理 ......)

 

     

10.  completely FAKE evaluations by the government

       ◆  Apple Daily (6-2-2015, "完全造假的醫院評鑑" by 呂享諧M.D. http://www.appledaily.com.tw/realtimenews/article/new/20150602/621194/):  The fake evaluations of the hospitals by government were done by officials and hospitals, those "mutual understand" fake items include hospitals employing ghost nurses and temporary nurses who will be fired after the evaluation, fake SOP, fake meeting records ...  the evaluation results - different level of hospitals, may affect up to 10 billion + dollars annual income by hospitals.

        ◆  Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批) at 9-27-2015: 6 false shows in the evaluation of Taiwan's hospitals

           False evaluations are everywhere in Taiwan, from army, fire-extinguish dept., to many other businesses... including hospitals.  Since Taiwan's government informs the time for evaluation, hospitals have plenty of time to plan everything in details for a false results.

           1.  In evaluation day, hospitals request rookies to take a day off or specially arrange evaluation-committee members going specific route, in there they only meet senior medical staffs.
           2.  Hiring people for short term or taking administration staff into statistics
make a beautiful ratio of nurse and patients.
           3.  For dealing with evaluation, hospitals limit the number of outpatients, decrease  the number of inpatients, and patients in emergency room waiting for a inpatient-bed.
           4.  Medical doctors and nurses are busy in paper works for evaluation, decreasing the time to take care of patients.
           5.
  Hospitals are busy for evaluation or authentication, so as to create a false image of perfect administration and high degree of medical skill.
           6. 
In evaluation day, hospitals request all medical staffs give evaluation-committee members "model standard answers" (『標準答案』).

   

 



 

   

pic above: During evaluation time, all the surgical suites in a very busy hospital were empty, Medical Doctors took one day off
 photo "Apple Daily's Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批)" 9-27-2015.

 

 

11 shady & shabby deals in medical circles -

     money  brief from Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) exclusive interview former minister of Health, Dr, Yang C. L., rpt. of 2011/04/14 United Daily News (聯合新聞網), and 2011/04/18 The China Times (中國時報)  

              ◆  pharmaceutical factories and opticians tried every efforts in offering all kinds of attentive services to target physicians, paying check for their going abroad and meal is just "basics",  "extras" are, e.g., taking the initiative to sponsor a certain foundation, arranging local entertainment girls together with them during a medical conference in mainland China, etc.  Some physicians even have a "wife" in each province of China.

            ◆   He was told certain price is needed for some top positions like provincial hospital president or assistant administrator.

             The  Liberty Times (8-28-2013) : according to latest report by dept. of labor, 6 out of 21 sweatshop hospitals are state hospitals, their illegal deeds include giving no overtime payments for overtime workers, etc.

       ●  politics

         ◆   Hospital's long-standing malady that Dr. Yang (楊志良) exposed is just the tip of the iceberg, ugly dark sides of Shiroi Kyotō (Taiwan's hospital and medical doctors) and pharmaceutical factories are inseparable, closely linked.  Pharmaceutical factories focus on public hospitals joint purchasing projects (聯合採購標案), major battle fields are 退輔標、軍聯標、署聯標、市聯標,  hospital's president actually is the key man in the shadow, although avoiding purchasing things on the surface.  Besides, political connections help, hospitals usually buy politicians, say, legislator's letter. 

             ◆    Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批) at 9-27-2015:  "Terrible white terror in Taiwan medical services"
                   
1. "Auditing & expense/budget controlling" becomes inspection-committee members' means for revenge (核刪成為審查委員報復手段)
                    2. The reasons for cut off some expenses is groundless, leading to patients missing best time for curing. ( 核刪理由"莫須有"錯失治療黃金時間) 
                    3. In order to push patients to pay on their own dimes,  inspection-committee members not only cancel some expenses, but also double deduct it (倒扣).
                    4. Encouraging using drugs/medicines made in Taiwan, influencing medical doctors' judgement and decision.
                    5. Taiwan government may blames  inspection-committee members sometimes cut off some expenses without good reasons, but, actually, committee members just followed the government's "hint" to do it.

 

 


 

 



 

pic left: "complicated relationships between medical businesses and politicians?", photo "Apple Daily's Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批)" 9-27-2015     pic. right: "White terror in Taiwan's medical field" , photo "Apple Daily's Next TV (壹電視/正晶限時批)" 9-27-2015

            ◆   I personal encountered some suspected cases concerning collusion between medical staffs and politics ...

         

12 clinic's  out-patients   VS.  hospitalized patients

            

                        ●  " In Taiwan's health-care systems, senior attending physicians or top MDs treat out-patients in mild condition, junior (or rookie) Resident Doctors treat hospitalized patients in serious condition, that's put the cart before the horse  ! ".   Taipei mayor Ko criticized。

       ●   Most patients needed to be hospitalized are the elderly with multiple diseases for years , however,  Taiwanese Medical Doctors in various divisions specialize in one field only, and only like to pick up one-disease patients。  Hence, some patients stayed in emergency room for 28+ days and then left or just died on the wheel-bed 。  /  for details about 7D ntuh,  following "Hospital Medicine" system's footsteps. Around 2012, about 20-50% hospitalized patients were taken care by the hospitalists, in the US.   pls. read <天下雜誌> no. 498 (2012-05-29 )  https://www.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=5033140
                        ●   Sometimes you may have clinic MDs or senior or top physicians, but most of time they are quite busy .....  

 

13 Discriminations in Taiwanese hospitals

        ●  Taiwan Television Enterprise (TTV) Commonhealth Magazine (康健雜誌, issue No.184)  <Some specific patients bear the stamp of suffering >:  Some patients go to hospitals out-of-town, or even go to several clinics each in different hospital ――  what's patients' secret behind ?  the answer is , e.g., some Melancholia (depressive disorder) patients do it this way, another case is when some physician found his patient is Psychiatry patient as well, he showed impatient and pushed his patient to go consulting Psychiatry M.D.,  so that this patient feel himself a sub-patient in medical service (brief,  author:吳佳璇)
               
Taiwan University Hospital , "The jewel in the crown of health care providers",  is suspicious of discriminating elderly people (or all people) living alone in medical examination - stress-free anesthesia colonoscopy,  NTUH staffs seem not welcome this group of people, who are not allowed to do this examination alone, or even accompanying by another old people or a young household caregivers who is specialized at taking care the elderly.  NTUH does not allow the examinee to do anesthesia colonoscopy unless a younger family member coming together.    This unreasonable condition is not written in the signatured agreement, and never let examinee know in advance, furthermore, it's ruled by men, not a 'institutionalization', which means some cases are fine, some others may not be permitted. (ps: On Dec. 2016, NTUH added "Together with a family member or a friend is a must for examinee to do anesthesia colonoscopy " on the agreement)  ps: FTV HD 民視台灣台 , <新聞大解讀> , 3-1-2018  8:52pm: Taiwan will enter a "zero families age"("零家屬時代"), 40% are the elder in 2050.

              

14 only 3 min. for each patient

          

       The United Daily News (聯合新聞) 1-3-2017 : How can those M.D.s spent 2 minutes on those patients with complicated or serious condition... Fast medical diagnosis (100+ patients per clinic) may increase the probability of  incorrect judgments...  (黃達夫)

        Dr. Ye Ching-chuan (former leader of health government, 葉金川) blog (6-30-2009): Taiwanese go to clinics 15 times per year, 3 minutes with M.D. each time, in contrast,  Americans  go to clinics 4 times per year, 15 minutes each time;TTV(台視常春, 3-1-2011): Taiwanese patients talk with M.D. for 3 minutes only (看診3分鐘,該跟醫生說甚麼...);CTS(華視, 5-19-2010): A popular M.D. in Kaohsiung spent 1.4 minutes in average on each patient...

              

15Half failed to pass health inspection

     The Liberty Times (11-29-2016): Half of random-selected hospitals failed to pass  (Food and Beverage Sanitation  or environmental Sanitation ) health inspection.

   

 

16. Fake medicine
    
Apple Daily 2-24-2017, 3-7-2017 :  Crestor (a most popular blood-lipid lowering drug by AstraZeneca), ranking No.1 sales-amount covered by Health Insurance in 2016, was faked by illegal Syndicate.    Since the circumstance is from bad to worse, the government declared to retrieve all Crestor.
       The Liberty Times , 3-15-2017 : The leader of National Health Insurance stated medical people pointed out faking drug is because the price of  brand or regular medicines was cut down to bottom...  they choose to fake the most popular drug if have to be illegal...

17. "patients centered" or "money centered"  ?

 

     ◆ news
          
●  United Daily (聯合報), 9-27-2019: Taiwanese patients with serious disease get no Doctors...

 

               ●  United Daily (聯合報), 11-10-2019: Long-term care to home, only 270 MDs from entire country joined

   

  pic.: a great policy ! but coverage rate of assignments is only about 1/100,  MDs complain little incomes ... ...

 

            ● The China Times, (中國時報,  7-4-2017) : former vice president of National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH):  many hospitals focus on making money,  "patients centered" is nothing but a slogan, if the leaders fail to convince people by virtue, and M.D.s fail to raise their moral standards.  (台大醫院前副院長"走火入魔的白色巨塔"批評: 台灣許多醫院的管理只是為收入,管理者應以德服人,醫師如不隨時努力精進,『病患為中心』只是口號 。)  

 

            ●  Apple Daily 6-17-2017: Taiwan's orthopedic surgeon was accused of kicking out an old lady patient with bed sore (pressure sores),  that Plastic Surgery M.D. was criticized only to save patient's face look instead of patient's life.

   

  pic.: a patient with bed sore was kicked by an orthopedic surgeon from Taipei to JiaEe city, news report hospital always loss money to treat this kind of disease

    
     ◆ experiences
NTUH as an example

                     

            ●  top MD professor: The reason the patient needs to use oxygen-breathing apparatus this time is that her heart is too large...      patient: as large as before ?       top MD professor: I don't know ( he was not willing to look at  Ap views / images in his computer )   Cardiologist professors in later days proved it's about same size as before

            ●  top MD professor A:  lung atelectasis ( written in medical record )        top MD professor B:  I don't see any lung atelectasis         NTUH ap view report writes no atelectasis    
           
●  NTUH forced a venerable aged patient to leave by 11 am, even she had one underwear only, nothing in lower body  (NTUH contract care-taker had not asked patient's families to bring her pants by mistake ...) , NTUH's phrase was "that's the rule to leave by 11 am, like all the hotels" ... "we don't have document on hand, you can ask NTUH leader (director) for the doc."      After protests, NTUH still removed the patient from the bed to a small bed-cart at the corner of the one-bed ward, and then started to clean the room by bleach which may harm patient's lung.   

            ●  NTUH nurse turned off both oxygen-breathing apparatus and the machine monitoring patient's blood oxygen level that working for a very old hospitalized patient who needs both for 24 hours,  this may endanger patient once her blood oxygen level down to 90- , 80- ......, the machine hence can't generate alarm-noise to warn the Doctors and nurses.

 

 

18 all of us are unwanted clients

         United Daily,   2-3-2018,    https://udn.com/news/story/11319/2966710
               Taiwan's hospitals have an unspoken rule ―  inpatients staying in ward more than 28 days might be "forced" to be discharged from hospital, many turn into "unwelcome tramp" wandering from one hospital to another, although there's no this kind of laws or regulation made by the government.   Most of these sad people are stroke patients.

     ● <China Times Weekly> (8-28-2015 ~ 9-3-2015, No.1958) article "The crisis of Taiwan's Medical & Health services" (by Taipei City Hospital leader /黃勝堅) : "When medical solutions become too commercialized, and lose humanistic care and respect, sooner or later, Taiwan's medical systems will face a  severe challenge of breaking down..."

        impact of DRGs (new version of insurance)   negatively affect patients in Taiwan as below:

      ◆  Patients with multi diseases may become unwanted clients (medical negligence, Chinese namely "人球") - hospitals may filter patients, reject some or deal with their disease only one at one time -  hence patients waste lots of time for it..

      ◆  The number of items to be paid at patient's own expense increases if you want same quality of treatment as before or a complete & precise medical examination.

      ◆  Patients may be asked to discharge earlier even they have not healed or recovered completely, if you 'd like to be in ward for more days, pay on your own dimes, because DRGs push hospitals to discharge patients 3~5 days after treatments or operation, otherwise the hospital will absorb additional cost which means losing money. 

      ◆  Do those examinations only for the item why the patient is hospitalized at this time.  

      ◆  If a patient needs 2 surgeries, hospital will find some "reasons" to push the patient leave hospital after his/her 1st operation, then the patient pays extra efforts to be in hospital again for his 2nd operation. 

      ◆  If a M.D. 's patients' amounts of medical expense covered by insurance are over the budget's upper limit, this MD physician's "performance" (績效) will be reviewed or examined by his hospital.

      Details pls. ref. to <今周刊>(Business Today) 10-31-2014

 

 

19 sexual harassment in hospitals

         The Apple Daily 3-17-2021: Sexual Harassments in the workplace between medical staffs and patients, Doctors and nurses, MDs and MDs have happened again and again, the medical circle has rarely concerned structural factor , and has not systematically improved the strategy to protect all victims in the hospitalstw.appledaily.com/forum/20210317/WREUOIEGRRCK7ELGRFLHDWOABM/  廖郁雯
        
The Apple Daily 7-17-2019: A MD of Tri-service General Hospital is suspected of lifting a female patient's clothe and poking her breast in a private room without any female nurse there.
        
The China Times <中國時報> 3-8-2018: according to investigation/survey, 80% female physicians met sexual harassment, ... a female physician of Cathy Hospital had different views and said the percentage of harassment to nurse probably higher because they are young and in lower status  (8成女醫曾遭性騷擾, 女醫反應兩極 ... brief)

20. Court Doctors

       Apple Daily, 4-27-2018:  Taiwan got only 3 court Doctors / legal medical experts can do operations.  

 

21.  inspection failure  - hospital & long-term care problems
      
United Daily, 8-14-2018:  Taipei Hospital big fire, in recent 6 years, 5 fires, 36 died, 185 wounded in nursing home (long term care facilities).

            Apple Daily, 8-14-2018:  6 fires in 7 years.

 

 

22.  MDs and patients taped each other secretly for self-protection

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Af-XbYICxI   TVBS 7-12-2015  & 5-25-2015

https://news.tvbs.com.tw/life/581627

https://news.ebc.net.tw/news.php?nid=73470

https://www.cw.com.tw/article/article.action?id=5076858

 

23.  The quality of air in hospitals  /  best hospitals like NTUH failed to pass bacterial concentration tests

 

   

 

 

  pic: UDN(聯合報) 3-16-2019 : The quality of air in hospitals is bad  /  best hospitals like NTUH failed to pass bacterial concentration tests

 

 

 

 

24.  Major medical malpractices happened again and again

        ◆  <United Daily>,  (11-18-2018): Major medical malpractices and patient safety events happened again and again, medical reform group suggested legislating a new law.

        ◆  <The China Times> (11-17-2018) : Ridiculous mistakes !  Tzu-Chi Hospital's nurse took injection of urine (as Normal-Saline) mixed with albumin to a patient, 10+ days later, that Cirrhosis patient died.
      
◆  <The China Times> (6-24-2018) : A nurse of NTUH connected wrong Hemodialysis pipeline (tap running water replaced bacteria-free medical water) to patients doing kidney dialysis in ICU (Intensive Care Unit) resulting in 1 weak died a few days later, and several may be affected.    Dirty water into blood vessels may caused Sepsis, NTUH accepted too many patients and lacked S.O.P. for risk management.   <Liberty times>, 7-6-2018, <Apple Daily>, 7-7-2018:  Chinese Medical University Hospital had similar mistake at 2-23-2018, one patient was affected, National CK Univ. Hospital at 5-24-2018 misused bleach to do kidney dialysis, fortunately, the machine was shut down for abnormal detective signal,  National Taiwan University Hospital at May 25 & 26, 2018 affected 6 patients, 2 patients died, not caused by this, based on initially judgment.

       ◆  <Apple Daily>, 11-18-2018: Mackay Medical Hospital (新竹馬偕醫院) gave wrong vaccine to 4 newly born babies in Feb. 2018.   Tri-Service General Hospital (三總內湖院) connected wrong intravenous equipment (pipe) to a patient in Feb. 2014.

 

 

 

25.  Expensive instrumentation


Taiwan's hospitals invested huge money on expensive instrumentations, e.g., Proton Therapy (質子治療), heavy particle therapy (重粒子治療), Da Vinci surgery, etc, but their curative effects still can not be proven yet, or some of them are only good for some rare diseases, children's cancers.  Traditional Photon therapy is better for most cancer diseases.  Expensive instrumentations have not risen the survival rate of many cancers.   ref. to UDN, 7-1-2019 https://health.udn.com/health/story/7397/3901682

https://wd.vghtpe.gov.tw/Cancer_Cen/Fpage.action?muid=1652&fid=1244

 

 

 

26. personal data

    ◆  <United Daily>,  editorial (3-31-2019):  Taiwan plans to sell general public's personal data and digital human rights (e.g., people's medical health data without giving any notice ) ... Taiwan is a less developed country on personal-data protection  (brief https://udn.com/news/story/7338/3728815)

 

 

 

27.  medical circle in political battle-field

   

  pic.: <The Lancet> 2019 printed a paper and marked Taiwan as part of China, the editors insisted it's one China policy of United Nations and WHO, but later printed a protest letter by Taiwan's medical government and some famous MDs -  "Taiwan's health-care system and administration are independent of China".   source : LTN, head-page news 7-17-2019

 

 

 

28.  care givers in hospitals

           UDN (聯合報),  8-12-2018, headlines:   "run away" foreign laborers hide in hospitals to be care-givers lacking of pro. quality ...
         
Lots of patients in hospital wards or emergency room need care-givers, e.g., National Taiwan Univ. Hospital has 3 contract companies each offering hundreds of care givers, but still not enough for so many urgent needs ,  therefore, you may find ad. cards everywhere in the wards, one the floor, or in the closets, etc.  to provide with illegal foreign laborers for NT1600 working 24 hours, or legal local women (some are red Chinese) asking NT2200 per day, they may want higher price NT2300 for sleeping on hard chairs if the patients have not been hospitalized.  It seems to me a necessary crime, however, you may have risks,  e.g., very high amount of fine penalty given by the police,  some legal care-giver may collect money even working less than 15 hours ... 

 

 

 

29.   male nurses  VS. female dignity

      ●   "Male nurses and the protection of female dignity" (NCBI, Dec. 2010),   "Male nurses attending to female patients (nudity) is 'morals vs. ethics'", etc, are issues in the US, certainly, should be a hot issue in Taiwan, a more conservative country.   In NTUH (2019), some wards are nice to arrange same gender patients in one room, in principle, but, some  NTUH ward was inflexible at all, they didn't care female patient's objections, still assigned male nurses ( the number is extremely small compared to huge number of female nurses ) to female patient, in most cases the number of male patients suppose is about the same as that of female patients.   TTV (台視), 10-29-2012 "尿失禁怎麼辦": even aged people may be very shy - refuse other people to see their private part ...   

      

 

30.   health insurance benefits   VS.  health

          ●   When a patient denied a whole body CT scan suggested by the physician because of the risk of contrast medium, then the MD denied the patient's alternative suggestion - abdomen & pelvic cavity ultrasound and chest CT scan without contrast, even the patient was willing to pay the costs, this NTUH MD's reason is the hospital applying for National Health Insurance benefits might be denied by the gov.   However, another ward's MD (Chest Hsu) of NTUH is much flexible and nice - the patient can do MRI without contrast (July, 2019) to find out the problem.  So, hope you are lucky.

 

 

31.    Taiwanese M.D. crime rate global No. 1

 

             ● TVBS 2012/07/27:  Taiwanese M.D. were accused easily and frequently, hence "crime rate" is world No.1  ---    In average, one Medical Doctor was accused per day, one was convicted per month.

    Commonwealth Publishing Group (遠見) magazine, ettoday.net/news  2012/07/11:  The conviction rate (preliminary trial , district court judgment) of Taiwanese physicians is 24.5%.

 

 

 

32.   big vs. small

               United Daily's Weekly 11-24-2019: Many Taiwanese only trust so-called "best-known" Doctors (名醫), such as professors or dept leader MDs, however, 80~90% patients don't need them.   Besides, senior Doctors may have high sensibility on judgments, but new blood Doctors are more familiar with new medicines and new operations. 

 

 

 

33.   large hospitals  vs.  small clinics

                      UDN 11-27-2019:  70% Taiwanese think large hospitals are more professional, nearly 50% Taiwanese can't tell severity of illness index therefore go to large hospitals anyway.
                       
Taiwanese gov.: patients with serious disease should go to large hospitals.    

 

 

34.   CT scan, MRI

               Take NTUH as an example, there're more than once the CT scan report failed to be completed within 7-10 days ( the latest one is 20+ days in early 2021)  before the Doctor time.   As for MRI report, once another hospital found something important that NTUH report missed -  so sometimes you may need 2nd opinion from different hospital.     

 

 

35.   patients satisfaction

                     UDN 11-27-2019:  Taiwanese satisfaction about Taiwan health-care system : 19% satisfy the price they pay,8% satisfy medical quality protection  2% satisfy medical personnel services, overall,  89.7% Taiwanese satisfy health care system,  but only 30% medical field people satisfy it.  (brief)

 

 

36.  care-givers in hospitals

 

         Yahoo News, 2022-9-6 : The quality of outsourcing of hospital care-taking system is low, long-term care-takers should be trained.  The current professional long-term care-taking manpower is obviously insufficient, therefore the government should encourage middle-aged and older people to work in this field;  a Law-maker questioned that the caregivers in Veterans General Hospital (N. HsinChu) did not have long-term care qualification, her carelessness led to a suspected death. (tw.news.yahoo.com/醫院看護外包品質低-應增訓長照專員-060034986.html)
         健康遠見, 2018-11-8 : care-giving costs are so expensive, but the quality varies. Some hospitals engage in care-taking business regardless of their qualifications or certificates, training experience.  Besides, there are also many “hidden rules” in wards. For example, almost no one is willing to take half-day job, extra charges for patients in the isolated ward and for rehabilitated patients.  We should take lessons from the system in advanced countries in Europe and the United States.   (health.gvm. com.tw/article/65708)

           UDN (聯合報),  8-12-2018, headlines:   "run away" foreign laborers hide in hospitals to be care-givers lacking of pro. quality ...
         
Lots of patients in hospital wards or emergency room need care-givers, e.g., National Taiwan Univ. Hospital has 3 contract companies each offering hundreds of care givers, but still not enough for so many urgent needs ,  therefore, you may find ad. cards everywhere in the wards or hospital, one the floor, or in the closets, etc,  to provide you with illegal foreign laborers in the price of about NT1600 working 24 hours, or legal local women (some are red Chinese) asking NT2200 per day, they may want higher price NT2300 for sleeping on hard chairs if the patients have not been hospitalized.  It seems to me as a necessary crime, however, you may have risks,  e.g., very high amount of fine penalty given by the police, some legal care-giver may collect money even working less than 15 hours ... 

          報導者, 2018/11/7: In terms of care-taking fees, the central Taiwan is generally the highest, the northern Taiwan follows. the care-taker fee in hospital (中榮、中國附醫) is NT$2,400 ; The fee in NTUH, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Cathay, 亞東 is NT$ 2,200; The fee in National Cheng Kung University Hospital, and Kaohsiung Chang Gung  mem. Hospital is NT$ 2,000 .
          However, according to my experience at the end of Aug., 2022, in the emergency room of National Taiwan University Hospital, it is very difficult to get a care-taker, after 30+ phone-calls eventually I hired a male Taiwanese care-giver asking NT3,300 per day, but a few days later he quitted the job because of seeing patients  around us detected CovID positive day by day. Fortunately, I almost recovered at that time (the MDs are good and Colonoscopy, Gastroscopy, Ultrasound examination were arranged very quickly; in total I only paid the hospital USD 20+ for 5 days stay, very cheap,  one thing bad is I have all reasons to suspect some unknown people intruded my ward in the midnight )

 

 

37.   ambulance - emergency room

The Liberty Times (自由時報  talk.ltn.com.tw/article/breakingnews/3957062  2022-6-11 ): a widely known news - a two-year-old child (恩恩) was "delayed" for 81 minutes by emergency ambulance systems.  However, Taiwan's current 119 emergency system is doing very well, and the quality of the ambulance personnel is also very high.  The general rule is that the nearest ambulance personnel will be dispatched within 5 minutes after receiving the report.  Especially for the fifth level of first aid, such as suffocation, convulsion, coma, or cardiac arrest, it must takes 5 minutes to apply full-scale treatment,  even to start first aid in the ambulance, such as electric shock, CPR.   There is no reason to request a hospital-bed before sending an ambulance.  If you need to be hospitalized and there is no confirmed hospital bed, you can immediately contact other responsible hospitals for transfer.  In short, the ambulance comes first, save the life first.   But, all these change just because of the CovID epidemic?  (brief)

According to my experience at the end of August, the ambulance came very quickly, but the ambulance staffs had many "opinions", such as - NTUH (National Taiwan Univ. Hospital) definitely has no ward or bed for you, so must send u to the another hospital that I have never heard of, instead of NTUH I always went to (huge medical records over there), otherwise please take a taxi by yourself.  Until I offered NTD 500, they agreed to send me to NTUH, after arriving there, I had a wheel-bed (strykers) immediately, then the staffs did not accept my money.

 

 

38.    Nursing home

Sometimes, the MD may advise the elderly goes to nursing home after discharging from hospital.  But the quality of nursing home in Taiwan varies.

 

mirrormedia.mg/story/20180618soc013/ 2018-6-19: The evaluation is fake / the evaluation system is only implemented on hardware equipments, and the quality of service is difficult to see from the evaluation-results. cw.com.tw/article/5087334 2018-01-03: News of overcharges, fires, and abuses in nursing homes have been heard from time to time. Why is the government's assessment not effective?  Why don't we take the example of Japan, the United States, and Australia's evaluation system? businesstoday.com.tw/article/category/151139/post/201801110016/    2018-1-11: The elderly people may become angry, lose weight, refuse care-takers, even get into a state of depression, all these are because of not being used to the environment of group living in the nursing home - the elderly have lost their "freedom" .

 

nDaily Mail (UK), 2022-9-14: A nursing home in Taiwan has been forced to apologise for hiring a half-naked stripper to perform for pensioners in wheelchairs.  Video shows the stripper thrusting her breasts into a pensioner's face whilst shaking her bottom...spreading her legs and touching her crotch . The elderly resident, enjoying the turn of events...touching the woman's breasts.  The care home said they wanted to lift the spirits of the infirm residents  dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11210981/Nursing-home-apologises-strippers-bingo-party-woman-lap-dances-seniors-Taiwan.html

nNew York Post, 2022-9-13: Nursing home in Taiwan hires stripper for seniors in wheelchairs.   The man in wheelchair doesn't appear to mind, however, and can be seen squeezing the woman’s assets as she enthusiastically writhes her body. Other nursing home residents clapped along enthusiastically, seeming to relish the raunchy show.     Video:  Nursing home apologises for 'strippers and bingo' party after woman lap-dances on seniors in Taiwan | Daily Mail Online

 

 

   

 

 

 

pic. above: This websites group's ranked No.1 on Yahoo Taiwan  by keyword
  "medical Doctors in Taiwan"
, 5- 19-2019.

 

 

 

pic. above: This websites group's ranked No.1 on Yahoo Taiwan  by keyword
  "
physicians in Taiwan"
, 5- 19-2019.

 

 

 

 

pic. : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "physicians in Taiwan"  test at   1-12-2020, 11-11-2019

 

 

            

pic. above: No.1 "comment  Taiwan hospitals ", "comment  hospitals in Taiwan" on US Google , 12-23-2019 , 11-11-2019

 

 

 

    

pic. right : This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Google  by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  at  5-21-2019

 

 

pic.  : This websites group's ranked top 2 on US Google by keyword "physicians in Taiwan"  at  5-19-2019; 
 No.1 at
at  8-22-2019,  2-5-2019, 2-14-2018.

 

 

 

<Top rankings on US Google, Bing, etc till early '19 >

 

pic. above: This websites group's ranked No.1 on US Google by keyword "physicians in Taiwan" 
at
 2-5-2019, 2-14-2018.

 

 

No.1 "Medical Doctors Taiwan" on US Google, 1-28-2018

pic. above: This websites group's ranked top 2 on US Google by keyword "Medical Doctors in Taiwan" 
at
  2-5-2019, 2-6-2018, 1-28-2018.

 

 

 

medical Doctors in Taiwan

 

pic. above: This websites group's ranked No.1 on Google by keyword "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  at  5-20-2017, 4-26-2017.  top 2,  2-5-2019

 

 

 

 

 

  

 This sites were among top ranks by Chinese keywords "comment Taiwan hospitals" as well as "comment Taiwanese MD"  on US Bing, Yahoo, US Google, etc

   

 

 

 

                   

  pic. left :   No. 1 ranking by "comment Taiwan hospitals" on US Google, at 2-18-2018.
  pic. right :  "comment Taiwan physicians"  ranks No. 2  on Google Taiwan, at 2-18-2018.
 

 

 

pic. above:  No.1 "Medical Doctors in Taiwan"  on China's  Baidu   at  2-6-2018.

 

 

 

 

    < No.1 ranks on US Google, Bing, as well as Baidu of China, Yandex of Russia,
etc, test at 2-6-2018 etc
  >

 

 

pic. above:  No.1 "Medical Doctors in Taiwan"  on Yandex of Russia  at  2-6-2018.

 

 

pic. above:  No.1 "physicians in Taiwan"  on US Bing at  2-6-2018.

 

 

pic. above:  No.1 "medical Doctors in Taiwan"  on US Yahoo at  2-17-2018.

(upper 3 are ads)

 

 

No.1 "Physicians Taiwan" on US Google, 1-28-2018

 

 

 

                     

pic.  right: This websites group is ranked No.1 on Baidu of China by keyword "comment Taiwan hospitals"  at 10-24-2019.
pic. left: This websites group is ranked No.1 on Baidu of China  by keyword "comment hospitals in Taiwan"  at
 10-24-2019.

 

 

   To Be Continued ...

    

For precise meaning pls. ref. to Taiwan's medical and health service in Chinese version

This web-page was ranked No. 1 on google by keyword "comment Taiwan medical doctors", tests at  4-19-2017, 6-11-2016, 9-28-2015, 9-1-2015, 8-26-2015

This web-page was ranked No. 1 on google by keyword "台灣醫院黑幕", 6-11-2016

This web-page was ranked No. 1 on google by keyword "comment Taiwan hospitals",  4-19-2017, 6-11-2016

This web-page was ranked No. 1 on google by keyword "台灣醫療界黑暗面", 9-28-2015, 9-9-2015

 

 

Taiwan surgery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taiwan president Tsai: Food safety problem is one of biggest challenges to Taiwan / The China Times,  8-6-2016

 

ps: Taiwan is a liar ?