Unpopular opinion: healthcare in Taiwan is very bad

In Taiwan, if you do not work, you can still have access to medical services, as a citizen, that is your right. As a matter of fact, Taiwan is so socialist that homeless people may receive an aid of several thousand NTD plus social services.

And thankfully, society here has lots of charities and social assistance for the most needed if they ask for it/apply for it/accept it.

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I wish
BennyHill - St John’s Hospital​:rofl::joy: - YouTube
Benny Hill - Nurse Watching in the Park (1970) - YouTube

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If you don’t have a job then your household registration office will handle your NHI. The payment will be minimum payment.

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It’s not free, but it aint expensive.

This sounds like a conversation you want to have with a girl you have a crush on but doesn’t give you the time of day.

Once again, it looks like you want to knock doctors off the pedestal you’ve put them on or you’re jealous of guys getting laid when you can’t. If you were a hot chick would you want to date a whiny finger pointer or the swinging dick soon to be doctor?

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I don’t get the rant, probably as many other OPs said, a bad experience, which happen…

However, I find the system here rather efficient and effective.

And I can give counterarguments:

Well, here depends. It is mostly not free, as it shouldn’t be for most cases, alas abuses (like in Italy, my country), but it is rather cheap all considered. you don’t need to be employed. I’m technically unemployed as per taiwanese law being a remote worker for a HK company, and not being (yet) married to a citizen, couldn’t sign-up directly, just to wait 6 months, then my household office in Neihu handled my registration. As of now, I’m paying the minimum premium as per regulation.

Albeit there is societal pressure here for becoming a doctor, that is still not true though. Tbh, doctors are professional and work their asses off since they have so many patients. They always fixed me.

Don’t get this, won’t comment on it.

NHI here can be better, but it’s far from being bad.

Nah some doctors go to strip clubs and hostess KTVs , but so what. Are they not meant to party ? They’re not priests.

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NHI = Decent

Doctor Quality (in the NHI system) = meh

the OP worded it all wrong though. doctors here can really suck. more often than not. The trick to good health care is with the paid doctors in Taiwan . Also taking the incentive into ones own hands and leading the way with the government covered doctors making bank on pills and swipes. Failing either ends up with mediocre results usually. Or death. Sometimes entitlement is fatal :innocent: But we should still keep pushing for better I think!

Being better than the rest doesnt equate to good, simply just that others are shittier.

The idea behind the system is great. So, poor people could be subsidized by rich people.

Without proper Chinese, if you only have common cold or only need to clean your teeth 2x yearly, the system is perfect. To get full impact may need a proper Chinese skills, because doctors are a$$holes, they won’t admit that they don’t understand English, and this could lead to further problems.

Taiwans healthcare is fantastic if you got some minor dings or less intrusive surgeries. I’d say the doctors are quite solid. Not to the level of Japan of course, but the fact you can go see a doctor to tell you are constipated and not dying of something for 150ntd is fucking fantastic.

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I’ve found the service to be excellent myself. Only NHI and never bothered getting private coverage as it serves my needs.

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Because only Americans and Canadians call it ‘Free Healthcare’ in referral to Universal Healthcare. ‘Free Healthcare’ is a misnomer and it’s only referred to as such in comparison with the US as there are rarely upfront costs with healthcare treatment in Canada. What they really mean is Universal Healthcare. Universal Healthcare covers everyone regardless of their ability to pay. It could be entirely subsidised through general tax revenue like Canada, or a transparent mandatory non-profit government insurance scheme like Taiwan. Either way you pay for it.

‘Free Healthcare’ doesn’t exist.

I’ve never had this experience. I’ve always been taken care of in Taiwan and was able to get treatment quickly and easily.

What does this have to do with healthcare in Taiwan and whether or not it is good or bad? I don’t care what doctors do on their free time.

You don’t get to be a country with an 80+ year life expectancy with ‘very bad’ healthcare.

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I agree with that. I also agree with some of the sentiments above, although they are worded perhaps too harshly. there is a real problem with lack lustre professionals here and poor care which really should be tackled. The system is decent enough, but the individual care professionals do seem to be getting worse rather than better. That’s subjective. objectively, the tech and medicine is more or less improving which I feel is sort of clouding how the doctors themselves arent as good as they get credit for. but it isnt just doctors. I think people from say Canada probably cannot get used to how utterly useless nurses in Taiwanese hospitals are. That isnt a criticism so much as an observation. different culture different rules. I would hate to be alone here and poor and need to stay in the hospital!!

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I’ve never had to use a nurse, but i remember @shiadoa having nice things to say about his nurses

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That’s fair, and great. but if you do need one…watch out. They dont do anything but the bare minimum. And that is the standard. family or caregivers are hired to do bathroom stuff, showers etc. Blankets, pillows, containers for the pee etc. it is pretty astonishing to be honest!! this is also dangerous. the nurse killed my grandfather a few months ago while I was telling her what needed doing (not suffocating him). her lack of…well, everything…cause it’s not in the job description… caused him to actually suffocate. I brought him back and they kept stuffing the pillow under his side to prevent bed sores, killed him this all happened within 10 mins, they wouldnt even check them when I said he was choking on his saliva and needed them to come check. She was sad after, but never said sorry or admitted it. “famius” hospital in town. This type of story isnt rare. I would say for simple stuff, or at least not human intensive stuff, taiwan is great. but when it comes to the professionals **needing to ** invest long term time investments to actually fix problems, taiwan is not great. this is the problem I think that needs to be first discussed more openly without the stigmas attached to them, then tackled pragmatically :slight_smile: A certain percentage of this problem I feel is rooted in that Taiwan, regardless of a decent insurance system with a super rich government that can afford it, medical care is mostly private. It is all for profit, and that very clearly affects the quality of care people get.

In general I like the idea of the NHI system but I have struggled with the service of many doctors in hospitals. I have had experiences with impatient and in some case rude doctors that fob of my concerns.

I recently had an experience where a major Taipei hospital doctor proposed a procedure that was quite invasive and from the diagrams and explanation I wasn’t convinced it would solve my problem. Luckily for me I said I will think about it and searched online afterwards only to find that particular procedure is not used for issue that they diagnosed me with. It even says that on the wikipedia page for that procedure that it is not used for that condition.

I think in a lot of cases you have to know what you want and essentially tell them what you want. It shouldn’t be my responsibility to know what the best treatment for the issue I have is and I don’t feel comfortable telling them what I want as I feel they are qualified and should be telling me.

I have yet to find a dentist that I am happy with, I find you always have to push and push them to do things that are basic overseas like take the correct X-rays etc. NHI doesn’t seem to enforce any minimum standards on what they must do, so if they are lazy or want to cut costs they just don’t do things. My wife was burned a few years ago by dentist that decided to only take a whole mouth X-ray on the first appointment (that type is not detailed enough to see minor issues) and then take no X-rays in the appointments that followed for a number of years after. Sudden toothache which at that point they did take X-rays only to find a major issue that had obviously been progressing for some time undetected.

Again I feel like you need to know what you want and push them to do it.

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This is completely not consistent with my experience so far.

Guy

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this is the issue with the for profit health care we have in Taiwan. The difference to the US or Canada is the government foots the bill AND you get immediate care. but we are still left with health care professionals selling services in the best interest of the company rather than the individual. Not always. but often. this is the elephant in the room!

Doctor in Taiwan says you’ll need a little operation.
Oh no…,
are u free tomorrow he says.
What!!!
I need a few days at least.

You know you could only go to and complete med school if you are both smart and financially way above average, right?
For average Joe and Jill, standard Bachelor of Economics are good enough.

Last August I had a kidney stone and had to have surgery to remove. No incision just surgery by lycrcoscopic (sp?) Stayed two nights. I needed to do it right away as I was going overseas for two months. After two weeks of trying to blast it out and having it come out naturally he wanted to do surgery. He got me in the next day and was out two days later. He wanted to get it done before I went overseas. I do not think that would have happened in other developed countries such as USA Canada England etc.

On the other hand as stated by others I do think Taiwanese go to doctors when they do not need to such as for common cold. It wastes the time of medical staff and financial resources.

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