Taipei City Government

On May 4, Mayor Ko Wen-je attended the Taipei City Hospital (TCH) Doctor and Nurse Day Celebrations. During his speech, he emphasized that the most important aspect of the medical care system is “humanity.” He also took the opportunity to express his gratitude to the medical staff.
Citing his experience as a doctor and his long stint at the surgical intensive care unit, the mayor recalled the time he spent with the medical staff. The fact is that the medical care system requires a lot of people, especially frontline workers. When he assumed office, he instructed TCH Superintendent Huang Sheng-jean to ensure that hospital staff operates on an “equal work equal pay” basis, regardless of their status as permanent workers or temporary hires. This is a way of realizing equality.
The mayor emphasized that the branches of TCH primarily serve as community medical care centers and should not aim at becoming academic medical centers. In 2016, TCH was recognized by 19 major awards, with the SCI of the institution claiming sixth-place on the list of Taiwan’s medical institutions.
Despite seeing outpatients during his first year as a doctor, Ko admitted that he hasn’t met patients for decades since working as the director of the ICU. Again, after years in the company of electrocardiograms and pathology reports, he returned to interacting with patients and their family members in his 50s. From this experience, he learned that medical science is not only science – without the human aspect, the discipline will become meaningless.
He pointed out that hospital workers mentioned to him that many patients and families nowadays demonstrate poor attitudes and can be quite unreasonable. Ko noted that they often see themselves as consumers and deal with the medical care professionals accordingly. However, he still believes that if the staff treats them nicely, 99.5-percent of patients will return the favor, so there’s really no reason to give up on everyone due to the remaining 0.5-percent.
As the mayor, Ko explained that what he hopes to see is a medical care system that connects with people. He expressed his gratitude to the medical workers for their contributions for helping to realize this vision