By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
A delegation of three US doctors is set to arrive in Taiwan today and visit former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in jail in the afternoon, the office of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said in a press release.
The delegation includes Ken Yoneda, a professor of clinical internal medicine at University of California, Davis, Charles Whitcomb, also a professor at UC Davis specializing in cardiovascular diseases, and Joe Lin, a member of UC Davis’s Board of Trustees.
The doctors said their visit to Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year jail sentence for corruption, is a humanitarian effort as they, as private citizens, are concerned about public reports on Chen’s medical conditions.
According to the press release, they would be in close contact with the US Congress during their stay and plan to prepare a report of their conclusions and recommendations and inform the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the US House of Representatives of their findings.
Chen has complained of various illnesses since he was imprisoned, including chest pain and respiratory problems. The DPP has urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to grant Chen a medical release, while a number of politicians have called for a pardon.
Chen underwent a medical checkup at Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in New Taipei City (新北市) on May 23.
Doctors said that the two tumors that had been detected in Chen’s seminal vesicle earlier this year are benign, adding that they were trying to determine why a third clot has formed.