- TAIPEI (Reuters) - A SARS-hit
hospital in southern Taiwan said on Monday more than 100 staff have resigned
due to fears of catching the flu-like virus, dealing another blow to the
island's strained health care system.
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- A spokeswoman at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in
Kaohsiung, Taiwan's second biggest city, said 124 medical workers have
quit in the past week, after scores of doctors, nurses and patients were
infected with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome.
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- With another 110 of about 1,500 staff under quarantine,
Chang Gung is drafting people from other departments to help it maintain
operations while grappling with the SARS outbreak.
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- "There is a shortage of manpower and we're working
overtime," said one Chang Gung nurse who resigned.
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- "Our chief nurse, who is pregnant and can't go home
to see her children, cries and works at the same time," she told cable
news network ETTV by telephone.
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- The Taiwan government has come under fire for failing
to prevent a slew of SARS outbreaks at six hospitals since late April,
causing the island's SARS cases to rocket to 344 -- the third-highest in
the world after China and Hong Kong.
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- Health minister Twu Shiing-jer resigned on Friday to
take the blame for the worsening situation, saying he took responsibility
for a shortage of protective gear, including surgical masks.
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- Although Taiwan reported no new SARS cases on Monday,
health officials warned the outbreak was far from contained. The island's
death toll climbed by five to 40 on Sunday.
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- "It's likely we'll see more cases after today,"
an official from the Department of Health said by telephone.
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- President Chen Shui-bian praised medical workers and
called for public support as he tried to boost the morale of embattled
health workers.
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- "Without the defense formed by front line medical
workers, SARS will swallow the whole of Taiwan," said Chen, wearing
a face mask in public for the first time, at the opening of Taiwan's first
hospital dedicated to the treatment of SARS.
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- "Without the support of the people, even the most
powerful medical defense will collapse."
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- Understaffed and overloaded, National Taiwan University
Hospital reported more than a dozen suspect SARS cases and shut down its
emergency ward last week.
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- In the capital of Taipei, more than 20 of the 150 nurses
and doctors from the Taipei Municipal Ho Ping Hospital -- the first hospital
hit by SARS -- also resigned.
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- When the hospital was first sealed off in late April,
about two dozen medical workers had protested being quarantined and one
even threatened to commit suicide.
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- Medicine is traditionally one of the most venerable professions
in Taiwan, but it has lost its allure after SARS.
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