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Posted on 04/26/2003 8:38:28 AM PDT by Lessismore

About 40 of the Ho Ping staff, furious at their being quarantined inside the hospital over the massive SARS outbreak there, skirted a police cordon to stage a protest in front of the hospital yesterday. "Wrong policy," read one banner unfurled the nurses and other workers protesting the government's decision to seal off the hospital Thursday after seven of the Ho Ping staff were suspected of having SARS.

They asked the policy-makers to come stay with them in the hospital.

"We don't want to contract SARS. Many of us want to jump (to death) off the hospital building, or we may be better off euthanized," said one of the staff during the 30-minute protest.

The protest epitomized the general anger and fear of the over 1,300 confined staff, patients, and visitors over the possibility of contracting SARS.

Many of doctors and nurses were said to be refusing to provide medical care to the SARS patients ¡X whose number had jumped to 20 as of yesterday ¡X kept in an annex building.

Others among the 930 quarantined staff tossed soft drink bottles with protest messages pasted on them out of the windows to express their rage.

Some even escaped from windows shortly after the quarantine order was issued Thursday.

While Mayor Ma Ying-jeou threatened heavy punishment for those defying the quarantine order, many of the staff said they would lose their jobs rather than their lives.

The hospital's chief, Wu Wen-kang, could do nothing but cry with colleagues, reports said.

The condition in the hospital, caught off guard by the seal-off order, was said to be in disarray.

Many of them had to sleep on the ground, and the hospital reported insufficient medication.

They complained that in annex housing, the SARS patients were not properly separated from other parts of the hospital.

The China Times Express said many of the staff already felt sick out from exhaustion, and they were on the verge of a nervous breakdown if no back ups came.

The Cabinet-level Department of Health is now seeking 300 doctors, and 1,000 nurses to move into Ho Ping to back up the exhausted staff.

Vice health minister Lee Lung-teng said the backups would be first government- and military-run hospitals, and anyone refusing the draft would be punished according to the civil servants' employment regulations.

Lee said the draftees may be honored with cash "courage rewards."

The city government is now also transporting by bus the quarantined staff to rest between shifts at a Kungkuang compound formerly housing the military Tri Service General Hospital.

"The nurses who are not working can go rest there, and read papers and magazines," said Deputy Mayor Ou Chin-der during a visit to the Ho Ping Hospital. "We want to give them a healthy environment."

They'll have to return after their periodic breaks, city officials said. It wasn't clear how long the breaks would last.

Meanwhile, Taiwan raised the number of its probable SARS cases from 41 to 49. There were also 65 suspected cases, the Health Department said.

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