Plucking Kuan [homonym for removing a tube] vs. Connecting the Wrong Tube: Or Such Gov’t Actions Akin to Putting the Cart before the Horse

 Plucking Kuan [homonym for removing a tube] vs. Connecting the Wrong Tube: Or Such Gov’t Actions Akin to Putting the Cart before the Horse

United Daily News Editorial (Taipei, Taiwan)

June 28, 2018

 Translation of an Excerpt

After National Taiwan University (NTU) finished the four-day-long “Association of Pacific Rim Universities – Annual Presidential Meeting (APRU-APM)” yesterday, in which, affected by the “plucking Kuan case,” [see translator’s note below] a few well-known foreign university presidents who should have attended did not show up, making the activity of a series of university celebrations honoring the 90^th anniversary of National Taiwan University lose their luster. Especially embarrassing was that, as host of the University Presidents Conference, the president of NTU was elected but could not be appointed; Taiwan, as the host country, had no Education Minister, and the President of the Republic stayed away. An international event that was sought after with all efforts could not but end with a whimper.

Recently NTU has had more than one misfortune. Besides its image having been heavily undermined because of the “plucking Kuan case,” a calamity occurred in the NTU Hospital intensive care unit, when the wrong tubes were connected to dialysis patients. Hemodialysis of dialysis patients should be connected to reverse osmosis tubes, but the nurses mistakenly connected them to running water tubes; such serious blunders possibly had caused the death of the two patients. The incidents occurred nearly a month ago, and NTU Hospital only openly apologized now, while trying to defend that the cause of the patients’ death had nothing to do with the infections caused by the connection of the wrong tubes. It is difficult for people to identify with such a cavalier attitude. NTU Hospital is NTU Medical School Hospital; NTU has been in a state of without its president for half a year because of political intervention. Such serious negligence had happened in NTU Hospital and yet the blunder was not acknowledged sooner; no wonder external circles were thinking about the association of the two matters.

The DPP government forcibly proceeded with “plucking Kuan” vis-à-vis NTU, and NTU Hospital in gross negligence “connected the wrong tubes” for the patients; these are two blunders that should not have been treated and discussed at the same time, but both have created irreversible consequences. "Plucking Kuan" is something that the government should not have meddled in, while "connecting the wrong tubes" was something the government should have dealt with, yet cavalierly glossed over. When officials behave in such a manner, putting the cart before the horse, no wonder it startled the public!

[Translator’s note: see article Control Yuan Issues “13^th Order” Plucking Kuan for an explanation of the “plucking Kuan case” at this link: http://www1.kmt.org.tw/english/page.aspx?type=article&mnum=112&anum=21295&kw=plucking ]

Attachment : none