The Long, Long Road to Disability Certification in Taiwan

The Long Road to Disability Certification in Taiwan

MEGA NEWS UPDATE – July 1st marks the beginning of Disability Pride Month!

It’s July 1st and the beginning of Disability Pride Month. I am writing to you today after a very long wait – 10 years to be exact. I received my disability certificate in Taiwan on April 24, 2025 after waiting a decade for assistance.

I’m the first foreign permanent resident to have a certificate for axSpA and APS in Taiwan.

It’s an unfriendly environment for anyone with a disability, especially if you do not speak Chinese. The certificate does not equal benefits!

This is my personal story about my long, long journey to a disability certificate in Taiwan

In 2015, my arthritis became very severe. It was my second year of being mostly housebound by extremely aggressive arthritis. My husband and I started inquiring about a basic amenity that we thought wouldn’t be hard to receive since I can’t walk.

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• Invisible in Taiwan: What Disabled Life is Like in Taipei (2018)

We started asking my doctors about a disabled parking pass in 2015.

I was averaging 1-2 visits to the hospital each month. Being unable to walk to the third floor of my hospital, I became dependent on my husband. We have gone through a ridiculous routine of having him drop me at the front door, unload my wheelchair, go and park the car while I waited, then come and get me to push me to my appointment. We then had to reverse everything to get home. One appointment knocked me out for a week. We didn’t think it was unreasonable to ask about a handicap parking pass.

Simply put, my doctors laughed at our request and we didn’t understand why. No one told us at the time that foreigners couldn’t access disability assistance.

We didn’t understand why people were laughing at us when we were clearly struggling.

In 2018, I started paying out of pocket for biologics for my inflammatory arthritis.

This is the equivalent of paying for non stop chemo and radiation treatments by the way.

I was spending approximately NT$32,000 per month on medications that didn’t work. My inflammation improved by a slim margin, but it wasn’t enough to walk or stand much longer than 15 minutes. While I was spending thousands of dollars, we asked for help again. Once again we were laughed at. The long road to disability certification in Taiwan seemed impossible.

By 2022, I was out of remission with my arthritis. I lost range of motion in my knees, elbows and shoulders. My inflammatory arthritis is poly-articular which means it affects more than five joints. I found another specialist who was shocked at how I had been treated. After confirming that there was zero doubt I had axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis, he then confirmed I have D2T inflammatory arthritis. My arthritis is mostly med resistant. It’s classified as very difficult to treat.

We embarked on a six month journey of hitting it with every kind of med he could think of. I kept spending enormous amounts of money.

By the six month mark, he was able to determine that first line meds like NSAIDS and certain DMARDS weren’t doing anything. He applied for full coverage for access to all treatments and I won my first long and bitter battle with the healthcare system here. I no longer had to worry about payments, but my life was in ruins.

I have no idea why I used a photo of me standing for a petition for med coverage. The night I wore this dress to a charity gala in 2018, I was only able to stand for 30 minutes. I spent the rest of my night seated. Having used a wheelchair since 2009, I had no idea I’d be in one full-time by 2022.

It felt strange to win an unheard of petition for med coverage.

I thought it might make my life easier, but instead, things ramped up fast. My arthritis got worse and I ended up going through nine kinds of biologics trying to find something that works.

It was nice to win that petition in 2022, but life didn’t get easier. I got harder as my arthritis continued attacking my joints and organs and my blood started clotting.

My autoimmune arthritis was so bad, it was causing my blood to clot. In August 2023, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune clotting disease called Antiphospholipid Syndrome.

I started applying for my disability certificate in Nov 2023 when I learned another biologic had stopped working.

My disease markers numbers are going up. Plus I had a viral and a bacterial infection. “This should be easy as I’ve been housebound for years. I’ve just received the worst news.”

I was wrong. In short, I was initially told I’m not disabled enough yet.

Although I have three disabling diseases, my specialist thought it would be a waste of time in 2023. He acknowledges I’m disabled, but he also said Taiwan requires a specific level of disability to qualify.

By October 2024, I’ve blown through nine treatment options and my disease was reclassified as mostly med-resistant and very difficult to treat.

That was, unfortunately, what I needed on my paperwork to start the long road to disability recognition.

In January 2025, I sat in his office crying my eyes out and begging for his help.

He said it might be a possibility now that he has been able to observe my disease and has recorded that all the treatments have failed while my diseases have gotten worse.

I haven’t seen anyone except my doctor in years. I can’t do my appointments by myself and I have no independence. We’ve had family here helping as we can’t afford to hire help. I’ve spent a whopping 16 years of debilitating illness here in Taiwan.

My repeated attempts to call disability services in Hsinchu County failed.

I have cried every single day this year and have lost track of how many times treatments have failed me.

It’s nuts that I had to wait two years to get my certificate while simultaneously learning that my diseases were getting worse. I ‘failed’ nine treatments before my doctor thought I had a chance at getting assistance. It appears I will be starting a 10th treatment in October 2025.

Once I was reclassified, my husband took a day off and we went to Social Services in person on Jan 20th, 2025 – two days after my 50th birthday. I collected my Disability Handbook then and filed the paperwork.

My disability certificate arrived on April 24, 2025. The long road to disability certification in Taiwan is over. My battle with disability is not.

It feels weird to hold a piece of paper in my hands with the law that I helped change.

Before you congratulate, please watch my Celebratory Rage video.

Have a look at the ramp I had to navigate to get the handbook. As it turned out, that wasn’t even the right building. We had to go to a different part of town to get my disability handbook. Thus you are now seeing why I’m calling this the long road to disability certification in Taiwan!

Once I had that, I added some color tabs for my doctor and then had to leave it with him. He filled it out and then I collected it at my next appointment when I was with my husband. Surprise. I had to go to a third place to have it signed by a social worker who assessed me on the spot. That took another hour and energy that I did not have and was not prepared for.

I hope you’ll take some time to watch my video. Please share it if you know someone who is disabled here in Taiwan.

I now hold a piece of paper in my hands that gives me official status in the eyes of the Taiwan government.

When we visited Social Services on January 20, 2025, the entrance and exits to the building were quite long. As we were coming out of that building I filmed a video of the ramp. The government had sent us to the wrong building so we ended up driving to a second location. From there, I was able to get my disability handbook and have my doctor complete it for me. I’ll write about this process later.

Some of the benefits I’ve received because of my certificate are:

• My health insurance costs have been cut in half (a huge relief as my medical bills have eaten away at my savings and I can’t work)
• Our car tax was reduced
• I was finally granted a handicap parking pass
• I can request a companion for transport or access to venues. This means my husband can now enter venues with me officially as I need assistance. I can’t do it on my own.
• Disability vans are now available to me if I need them – once I learn how to do it in Chinese.
• Apparently I can also get a subsidy for disability devices

While I’m happy I now have some help, these benefits also came with problems.

I can’t, however, get free bus fare or discounts for venues here because foreigners aren’t allowed to have these benefits. The system doesn’t accept our current ID numbers.

For one, social services still won’t accept my Taiwan ID number. They will only accept local numbers which means only Taiwanese people can access online disability portals. When we inquired further about this at social services, we were told ‘not enough foreigners are applying for these services so there is no need to update our system’.

Thus the accessible services that I should have access to ONLINE require us to drive 30 minutes to apply for them in person in an inaccessible building.

I’m still trying to process what has happened.

Mostly I’m feeling rage and anger that I’ve suffered for so long and that my life is battle after battle after battle.

It’s no wonder so many give up.

Chronically yours,

Carrie, My Several Worlds

Additional Resource Reading

• Taiwan Disability Inclusion Petition – Time For Change!
• When Is A Person ‘Disabled Enough’? Denied For Assistance in December 2023
• The Great Inflammatory Arthritis Flare of 2022
• The Challenges of Life with Disability in Taiwan

Read more of my work on disability rights in Taiwan

• International Day of Persons With Disabilities in Taiwan – Dec 3 (2020)
• The Cost of Maintaining An Income When You Are Chronically Ill (2020)
• What I Want People To Know About Invisible Disabilities (2021)
• Disability Awareness: Did You Know? (2020)
• Invisible Disability Awareness Week (2022)
• Believe Us: Invisible Illness Awareness (2019)
• Testing Out Taiwan’s Robotic Exoskeleton Technology for People With Mobility Problems (2018)

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