MOHW rolls out Lunar New Year measures to ease ER crowding

Taipei, Jan. 15 (CNA) The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has announced new measures to ease emergency room (ER) overcrowding during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday after Taiwan faced a serious overcrowding strain last year that was called "unprecedented."

ER visits during the Lunar New Year holiday typically climb to 1.5 to 1.7 times the normal daily average because of visits by mostly noncritical cases, largely driven by cold weather and gatherings that fuel respiratory infections and viral gastroenteritis, the MOHW said.

The situation is also compounded by fewer primary care clinics operating.

Those factors came to a head in 2025 when ER rooms were so overcrowded, the Taiwan Society of Emergency Medicine described it as "unprecedented."

To improve access to medical care during this year's holiday from Feb. 14 to Feb. 22, the MOHW said the 13 urgent care centers (UCC) across Taiwan will close only on Lunar New Year's Eve (Feb. 16) and the second-to-last day of the holiday (Feb. 21).

They will operate on the other seven days to provide services in internal medicine, general surgery, pediatrics and orthopedics.

Launched in Taiwan's six major cities in early November, the UCC program normally offers medical services from 8 a.m. to midnight on Sundays and national holidays to divert non-emergency patients and ease pressure on hospital ERs.

During a news event, Deputy Health Minister Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥) said patients with gastrointestinal, infectious or lower respiratory illnesses can also seek care at designated "emergency responsibility hospitals" that will open infectious disease clinics from the first to the third day of the Lunar New Year (Feb. 17-19).

In Taiwan, "emergency responsibility hospitals" are facilities designated under a tiered emergency medical system to provide round-the-clock emergency care in their service areas, with 204 nationwide as of September 2025.

Extra precautions will also be taken to prevent transmission of the flu, which could be exacerbated by holiday travel, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director General Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) said.

He said the CDC will broaden eligibility for publicly funded flu antivirals from Jan. 20 to Feb. 28 for people with flu-like symptoms who belong to "high transmission" groups, including medical workers, residents, long-term care facility workers, and students.

CDC data showed 91,842 influenza-like illness visits from Jan. 4 to Jan. 10, up 9.6 percent from the previous week.