Two 500mg paracetamol tablets to be taken four times daily were prescribed to a 7-year old boy and were reportedly causing his death? We know that paracetamol, although it is an over the counter medication, should not be taken excessively even for adults but how could such a high dosage prescribed to a seven-year old boy?
When I was watching a Taiwanese TV host show last night, coincidentally, it was talking about the issue of the “angpow” culture or the corruption practices in one of the government-run hospital in Taiwan. It seemed that the doctors of a public hospital were found to be accepting bribes from the suppliers or medicine companies and so on. There were also various substandard incidents or malpractices highlighted at the talk show. In one of the instance highlighted, the operation theater of one the famous state-owned hospital in Taipei was reportedly caught fire while surgery operation was in progress causing the death of a patient who was undergoing the operation. Worst still, the fire alarm system was not working properly despite routine inspections. There were many more malpractices pointed out including negligence of doctors or nurses such as over dosage or wrong prescriptions of medicine causing injury or damage to the patients which were all covered up by the hospital administrations.
It seems that medical negligence is nothing new nowadays, but why it happens mostly in state-owned or government hospitals where most of the people from lower income group seek treatment? Does it mean that one can only get good medical treatment if he can afford to pay high medical fee while lower income groups will have to settle for sub-standard medical treatment in public hospitals?
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