Twenty-eight-year-old Yang Hsien-ho arrives at the prison every weekday, bringing medicine for inmates suffering from TB, according to Yang Wen-ta, director of the Taichung Hospital’s Department of Tuberculosis.

The visits are part of a project of the Department of Health to cut by half the number of TB patients by 2015.

Normally, a medical supervisor takes the TB medicine personally to where patients live, watches over their medication, asks about their situation, and will not leave before patients have finished taking their medicine, which is vital in preventing multi-drug-resistant TB.

In Yang’s case, it is not patients’ houses she visits, but a prison in which some of her patients are violent criminals, said Yang Wen-ta.

No one else wanted the job, Yang Wen-ta went on, adding that Yang accepted lower pay compared with that of her previous job as a nurse at the Taichung Hospital.

Taichung Prison provides a high standard of TB treatment and all inmates have to take X-rays and have their sputum examined if they are suspected of being infected with the disease.

The procedures are the same as those carried out at hospitals and confirmed cases of open TB are quarantined, Yang Wen-ta said, adding that the Taichung Hospital is responsible for taking care of TB patients, especially those with the multi-drug-resistant form of the disease in central Taiwan.

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