Taipei: Taiwan's Minister of Health and Welfare Chiu Tai-yuan criticized a letter published in The Lancet that described Taiwan's health-care system as being "on the brink of systemic collapse," stating it contained multiple inaccuracies and harmed the morale of frontline health workers. Chiu announced that the government will formally respond to the medical journal to clarify the situation and defend Taiwan's National Health Insurance system.

According to Focus Taiwan, the April 26 letter, authored by Li Jing-xing and Hsu Shu-bai from China Medical University Hospital in Taichung, highlighted systemic vulnerabilities in Taiwan's health-care system, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. They attributed the deterioration to structural policy myopia, rigid global budget payments, systemic inequalities, and fragmented primary care and referral systems.

The letter further claimed Taiwan's hospitalized COVID-19 mortality rate during the 2022 omicron surge was 58.2 percent, compared to Japan's 12.5 percent, attributing the disparity to limited intensive care capacity and policy failures. Chiu disputed these figures, stating that Taiwan recorded 8.85 million confirmed cases and about 14,600 deaths during that period, resulting in a case fatality rate of 0.16 percent, lower than Japan's 0.2 percent.

Chiu argued that using incorrect statistics to criticize Taiwan's health system was "deeply unfair" to medical workers. Addressing claims of nurse shortages, he noted that Taiwan has 83 nurses per 10,000 people, not 62 as cited in the letter, positioning Taiwan among the better-performing countries globally, though he acknowledged room for improvement.

He also emphasized that this year's National Health Insurance budget saw its largest increase ever, indicating continued efforts to strengthen the system.