If something has been sitting in the back of your throat, or on a tooth, or in the kind of headache you have been calling weather, this is the week. Next Friday through Monday a lot of the island’s ordinary medicine takes the same holiday the offices do.
Neighborhood clinics set their own hours. Many close for the whole stretch. The large hospitals — NTU, Mackay, Cathay, Chang Gung — publish a holiday roster, which means fewer clinics open and a longer wait if you walk in. Emergency rooms are for emergencies. A sore throat is not one, and you will sit next to people who are actually unwell while you wait to be told that.
Bring the NHI card. If you do not have one yet, you can still be seen as a self-pay patient, which is more expensive and still cheaper than waiting until Tuesday. English is a lottery at the holiday window. Morning is kinder than late afternoon.
Do it Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. Thursday the queues are people who had the same thought you did, only later.