Taiwan’s Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, Linkou, and Indonesia’s Bethsaida Hospital inked a memorandum of understanding on advisory services Jan. 17, paving the way for expanded exchanges between the facilities while promoting Taiwan’s leading-edge medical expertise and technologies in line with President Tsai Ing-wen’s New Southbound Policy.
One of the key components of Tsai’s national development strategy, the peoplecentric policy seeks to deepen agricultural, business, cultural, education, trade and tourism links with the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations member states, six South Asian countries, and Australia and New Zealand.
The pact, which spans collaboration in such areas as integrated patient care, patient referrals, superior medical services, and training and development, was concluded by Dr. Feng Szu-chung, head of Chang Gung’s oncology-urology team, and Dr. Bina Ratna, director of Bethsaida Hospital, in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital Jakarta.
Feng said Taiwan is a world leader in many medical disciplines and technologies, with proton beam radiation therapy—one of the most advanced medical procedures in the treatment of cancer—Chang Gung’s forte. Taiwan was the first in Asia to acquire equipment enabling this therapy and it is hoped that under the memorandum, related procedures and other life-saving treatments in which the country excels such as liver transplants can be shared with Indonesia, he added.
According to Feng, the New Southbound Policy allows for greater promotion of the nation’s burgeoning medical tourism sector in the 18 countries covered by the initiative, and opens the door for more people from Indonesia to obtain advanced treatment in Taiwan.
A total of 244,617 medical tourists visited Taiwan for the first 11 months of 2016, generating sector output of around NT$12 billion, according to the latest statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare.
In response, Ratna said the pact will improve the already high standards of personnel and medical equipment at her facility and stands to benefit the sizeable Taiwan expatriate population in Jakarta. It is anticipated that medical services meeting the specific needs of Taiwan businesspeople can be rolled out going forward, she added.
Chang Gung in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City is one of 11 facilities comprising the Chang Gung network of hospitals serving the country’s 23 million people. The facility offers 3,700 beds—the largest number in Taiwan—and employs more than 6,000 staff. It treats an annual average of 2 million outpatients, 200,000 emergency department patients and close to 100,000 hospitalized or surgery patients. (SCK-E)
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