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Control Yuan OKs
report on ‘flaws’ in A-bian’s care
By Shih Hsiu-chuan / Staff reporter
The Control Yuan yesterday approved a report that found “flaws” and “negligence”
in the manner in which the Ministry of Justice and Taipei Prison have been
handling imprisoned former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) health problems, but
they were not charged with censure.
Control Yuan member Huang Huang-hsiung (黃煌雄) yesterday finally had his
investigation into Chen’s case approved at a meeting of the Committee on
Judicial and Prison Administration Affairs — the fourth time that he had
attempted to correct the ministry and Taipei Prison.
The Control Yuan’s endorsement of the report came only after Huang gave up
trying to launch a censure motion, because he had failed with three previous
attempts.
At a press conference where he released a 32-page excerpt of what he said was a
report of more than 200 pages, Huang said his investigation, joined by nine
leading physicians in their respective fields, called for medical parole to be
granted to Chen.
Chen, serving a 18-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption following a
controversial trial, has been behind bars for more than four years. He has been
hospitalized at Taipei Veterans General Hospital for severe depression, among
other ailments, since September last year.
Huang launched an investigation in September last year after National Taiwan
University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) filed an appeal to look into the
ways in which the judicial system had dealt with Chen’s poor health.
Huang said his team had visited Chen four times over the past several months,
the last time being on Sunday, and they found that Chen’s health was
deteriorating rapidly.
He showed video footage taken on that day of Chen being asked to perform a
walking test, in the presence of several physicians and a Taipei Prison
official.
The footage showed that Chen had difficulty walking, he was unable to walk
forward when he was told to do so and kept falling down if not being held up, he
had difficulty walking in a straight line and struggled to walk with his eyes
closed.
Huang said that Chen has serious problems with his hands, which were shaking
uncontrollably, and he has a bad stammer.
Chen Rong-chi (陳榮基), a neurologist who was present at the press conference, said
that the former president suffers from multi-system lesions in his brain,
including in the frontal lobe, in the temporal lobes, in the cerebral white
matter beneath the cerebral cortex and in the cerebellum.
“While causes are yet to be determined, [Chen Shui-bian] has brain lesions,” he
said.
National Taiwan University Hospital physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) said that Chen was
close to death.
Neither the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) nor the Democratic Progressive Party
needed to worry because Chen would not be able to create problems in national
politics if he was released, Ko said.
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