Want China Times, Liao Pei-yu and Staff Reporter 2015-04-14
The Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei came under fire at the beginning of April after some of its staff published a video featuring surgery sessions for their fun and mutual encouragement, reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.
A screenshot from the controversial video. (Photo/Liao Pei-yu) |
The Tri-Service General Hospital in Taipei came under fire at the beginning of April after some of its staff published a video featuring surgery sessions for their fun and mutual encouragement, reports our Chinese-language sister paper China Times.
The video
featured several members of the hospital's medical staff, as well as footage
and photos of patients lying on the operating table. The staff were shown
sewing patients, holding bloody parts of patients's bodies with one hand and
giving a thumbs up with the other.
A
spokesperson for Taiwan Healthcare Reform Foundation (THRF), an independent
non-governmental organization that advocates on behalf of patient's rights in
Taiwan, said the staff should not make fun of patients and should respect their
right to privacy.
At the
outset of the controversy, hospital authorities appeared reluctant to face the
media and defended itself their staff, saying they were only having fun and
encouraging each other.
The
Tri-Service General Hospital also said that the video was intended as a
retrospective of the contributions of the medical staff as well as proof of
their hard work and did not intentionally violate patients' privacy. It also
said local media outlets were overreacting.
The
hospital said it will cooperate with the investigation conducted by the
Ministry of Health and Welfare but declined to say when they will make a
decision on which staff will be sanctioned, if any.
A
spokesperson for the hospital said video footage and photos of patients
comprise part of their medical records that have to be kept secret and can only
be used for academic research purposes. It is common to see video footage of
medical personnel making fun of themselves online, China Times said, but they
mostly made fun of themselves and not patients.
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