i am a visa-free-entry-covid-extension british person. my legal status here is tourist.
today i went with my fiance (non taiwanese ARC holder) to the hospital for her pregnancy check up and was denied entry because i didn’t have a 健保卡 or a 台灣身分證.
we are in changhua county.
i tried to present my drivers license, my passport, but to no avail. they had to type in a number and the system wouldnt accept my passport number.
my fiance went in for her checkup and i called the hospital to ask to speak to the management, after getting past various gatekeepers i managed to get through to someone in administration to explain the situation, and she said she would let me know by monday.
im currently in a situation where if my fiance goes in to labour i will be denied entry to the hospital where she is to give birth because i dont have the necessary ID cards despite being here in taiwan completely legally
on top of that while i was waiting outside one of the security guards came and secretly took a picture of me with his mobile phone, 2 minutes later another security guard came out to walk past me and i asked him if his colleague had taken a picture of me and he said yes, so i asked him for his company name and the name of the employee who had taken a picture of me, he refused to give me either of those and threatened to call the police. you can imagine i wasnt too happy about that. and i let them know in no uncertain terms of that fact. anyway, is there anybody who can raise the issue of tourists now being denied entry to hospitals? who can i contact to expedite the adjustment of regulations to allow tourists to enter hospitals?
Hey there. Call the Taiwan CDC ASAP and explain the situation. They will handle the negotiation with Changhua hospital. I’ve been rejected from a clinic in Changhua once as well.
Feel for you. but police mihht not have been a bad thing although you probably dont want to cause your pregnant fiance stress. But the police report might help you i would think. If they take pictures of you, its faifair to know their name. Not sure about the law, but seems reasonable.
I presented myself to the clinic having a skin condition. Was rejected because I was a non-arc holding individual at the time. Not sure why it mattered.
If you are a patiant who needs some medical treatment, it was an issue that you were denied entry to hospital, but now restricting entry of unnecesarry people is a norm.
the rules are the problem. thats the whole point of my post. please keep up.
anyway, the hospital administrator got on the phone to the CDC and i am now allowed in, all i need to do is bring my passport and call her in advance when we are coming for an appointment. problem seems to be solved so far. she even apologised for the behaviour of the security guards and said she would have a word with their boss on monday.
No need to be rude. Taiwan is dealing with its first real COVID outbreak. We should all exercise humility and be a little kinder to each other. While I can empathize with you and understand why you’d be frustrated, the situation and rules are changing very rapidly and it’s reasonable to expect that staff at places like hospitals might struggle to figure out how to deal with different situations. Especially in Changhua. Ha.
I don’t know if it would help or make your life more difficult. Anything with identification numbers in Taiwan is iffy if you’re not a Taiwan national.
