A nurses' union said on Wednesday that a shortage of nurses in Taiwan was due to low nursing care payments set by the Bureau of National Health Insurance (BNHI). At a press conference at the Legislative Yuan, Lu Meei-shiow, president of the National Union of Nurses Associations, R.O.C., said the bureau budgeted NT$19.9 billion last year for nursing care claims for more than 90,000 nurses, or a monthly average of just over NT$17,700 each. Even with the introduction of a program to improve nursing care for hospitalized patients last year, around 70 percent of nurses made just over NT$18,200 a month, less than the NT$22,000 salary fresh university graduates received under an internship program subsidized by the government last year, Lu added. At present, a day shift nurse cares for 7-12 patients, while a night shift nurse cares for 15-30 patients, according to the union. The more patients a nurse has to attend, the less time he or she can spend caring for each patient, which in turn increases the risk of injury or death for the patient, Lu said, citing foreign and domestic research. She called on the Department of Health to increase nurses' care payments to better protect patients and nursing professionals. Lee Chun-fu, chief of the BNHI medical management division's payment standards section, said that the bureau paid medical fees to medical care providers as part of a package that includes payments for nurses and doctors, which she said cannot be handled separately. The BNHI earmarked an annual budget of NT$830 million for 2010 and 2011 to improve patient care, however, and a portion of the funds could be used for increasing payments to nurses, she added. 