The head of the Taipei Prison yesterday said there was no need for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) to receive medical treatment outside the prison, even though he has recently complained about feeling unwell.
Fang Tze-chieh (方子傑) was responding to a call by Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), the son of the former president, for authorities to allow his father to leave jail to receive check-ups or treatment.
Chen Chih-chung, who visited his father at the prison earlier in the day, said doctors from the Taipei-based Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital, who take care of the former president, said he had developed signs of coronary artery disease or even heart failure and should be treated outside prison.
“Can the prison authorities take full responsibility should there be any undesired and unpredicted development [in my father] now that doctors have made the suggestion?” asked Chen Chih-chung, who is an elected member of the Greater Kaohsiung Council.
Fang told reporters that the former president had suffered from a headache for a few days because he took the wrong medicine, a problem that was resolved when doctors prescribed new medicine for him.
He said Chen Shui-bian’s physical condition did not merit the need for out-of-prison treatment.
“When there is such a need, we will do that,” Fang said.
On Nov. 11, the Supreme Court sentenced Chen to 11 years in prison for taking bribes in a land deal during his time in office and also gave him an eight-year sentence in another bribery case.
The former president maintains that his incarceration is the result of a political vendetta by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for his pro-independence views.
The rulings were the first final convictions in a string of corruption cases implicating Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍).
The former president is serving a combined jail term of 17-and-a-half years at Taipei Prison in Kueishan, Taoyuan County.
Source: Taipei Times - 2011/01/04
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