TAIPEI (TVBS News) — Taiwan's privately-owned medical centers are overly concentrated in the Taipei and New Taipei areas, creating an uneven distribution of medical resources, a National Taiwan University (NTU, 台大) public health professor noted in a paper published in November.
Chan Chang-chuan (詹長權), a professor at NTU's College of Public Health (台大公衛學院) urged the government to boost public sector investment to address this imbalance in research titled "Challenges and resilience of Taiwan’s health care system after Covid-19 pandemic" on the Journal of the Formosan Medical Association (台灣醫誌).
Taiwan's National Health Insurance (全民健保) program, nearing its 30th anniversary, has witnessed a substantial increase in the number of medical centers, rising from nine in 1995 to 21 in 2022. Chan noted that by 2022, private medical centers had 20,557 beds, while public medical institutions had significantly fewer, with only 11,777 beds.
Chan shared that although the government operates a single-payer system, private hospitals, and clinics deliver the majority of medical services due to insufficient public sector investment. Chan further explained that private medical facilities are primarily located in densely populated areas, not based on the distribution of medical resource needs. This results in inadequate access to healthcare in rural and remote areas.