Taipei City Construction Management Office

The Construction Management Office (CMO) had conducted the public security joint inspections for hospitals at Taipei City since Oct. 25. Two hospitals failing in inspections were “Jingmei Hospital” and “Susantown Hospital” at Nangang District.With their door handles removed, fire doors on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of the ‘Jingmei Hospital’ (Sec. 6, Roosevelt Road) which are difficultly opened will jeopardize fire escapes because of holes on fire doors; the ‘Jingmei Hospital’ was fined NTD 60,000 and responsible for immediate correction, said Mr. Chang Kang-Wei, Director of Construction Management Office (CMO). The director further emphasized that he hopes all business operators or managers of public places have to attach importance to maintenance and management of the escape system, for instance, fire fighters cannot immediately rescue people trapped in a disaster via the fire doors through which a fire escape is accessed while confronting serious violations such as fire doors not easily opened in emergency and delaying rescue. CMO pointed out two of 41 large-size department stores or hypermarkets failing in dynamic public security inspections, were “Breeze Center” (Oct. 15) and “Far Eastern Department Store, Baoqing Store” (Oct. 25), both of which were fined NTD 120,000 and had completed all corrections.According to Mr. Chang, the public security inspections of buildings conducted by the Taipei City Government continuously are also applicable to hospitals and nursing homes in addition to department stores and hypermarkets which had been checked; the business operators cannot pile up miscellaneous objects or products at all evacuation routes such as fire escape, fire shutter, and fume chamber or corridor, each of which is critical to public security. A citizen who witnesses any violation endangering public security could contact the Call Center by dialing 1999 anytime for immediate services.