New health-related regulations to take effect from July

Taipei, June 26 (CNA) Taiwan's Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) will implement a series of new services from July 1, including childhood development screening, expanding telemedicine services, and in-home acute care.

Childhood development screening

The MOHW will implement and subsidize six developmental screenings for children under the age of seven, Health Minister Chiu Tai-yuan (邱泰源) announced Tuesday.

The stages children will undergo the checks are 6-10 months, 10-18 months, 18-24 months, 2-3 years, 3-5 years and 5-7 years. Those with health insurance cards will be eligible.

The screenings will be conducted by doctors and check a child's gross and fine motor skills, speech and language development, and personal and social skills at each stage.

If a child's development appears to be lagging, they will promptly receive intervention, the ministry said.

Telemedicine

Amendments to the Rules of Medical Diagnosis and Treatment by Telecommunications will expand situations doctors can provide medical care over electronic devices.

These scenarios include long-term care for patients with chronic diseases, terminal illness care, care in correctional institutions, care for patients with mobility problems, care for disaster victims and for those with infectious diseases.

Available medical services will expand to include medical consultation, psychotherapy, and the provision of documents authorizing physical examinations.

Moreover, patients deemed by a doctor to be stable will be able to get their medication with an e-prescription.

Patients with chronic mental illnesses or terminal illnesses will have conditional access to controlled drugs such as morphine.

The ministry estimates about 2.47 million people will benefit from the amendments.

In-home acute care

The National Health Insurance Administration will test run a range of in-home acute care services, starting with patients whose ailments can be controlled by administering long-acting antibiotics, such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, or soft tissue infections.

Patients only needing antibiotics will be able to stay at home during the 7-9 day acute phase of their care, and will receive telemedicine, routine doctor's visits, or consultations with specialists.

Also from July 1, members of the public will be able to obtain free COVID-19 rapid test kits from around 2,500 clinics across the country, as the MOHW expects the epidemic to soon plateau.

CDC spokesperson Tseng Shu-hui (曾淑慧) said the expiration dates for the kits will fall in either September or December 2024, or January 2025.