Taipei hospital under fire for operating room video

Want China Times, Liao Pei-yu and Staff Reporter 2015-04-14

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.