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Specialists available only with appointment
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PATIENTS at Shanghai General Hospital in Songjiang District will from next Thursday be able to see specialists by appointment only, it said yesterday.
The new rule is designed “to streamline medical procedure, better use limited medical services and deal with scalpers who sell specialist registration numbers,” it said.
People who go to the hospital without an appointment will not be allowed to see a specialist that day, it said.
People can make appointments via the Internet, telephone, app, and also at the hospital’s reception desk, in its clinics and at self-service machines, it said.
“Elderly people, who are not familiar with online reservation, can call the hospital or go to an ordinary clinic for primary diagnosis and treatment,” said Hu Yang, a hospital PR official.
“Medical staff can help those who need it to make an appointment,” he said.
The local health authority has long planned to have an appointment system for hospital patients, like they have in the West.
The Shanghai Health and Family Planning Commission requires district and city-level hospitals to give priority to patients with reservations and those who have been transferred from community hospitals.
It wants more people to visit community hospitals for checkups.
Xu Ying, an official in charge of “appointment issues” at Shanghai No.9 People’s Hospital — which claims to be one of the best in the whole of China for dental services and plastic surgery — said that it has had an appointment system in place for all outpatients since 2014.
She said that 40 percent of the hospital’s 10,000 a day outpatients make appointments before going to the hospital, which saves everyone time.
Despite the system, not everyone needs an appointment, she said.
“For the convenience of elderly people and those who have to travel a long way, it is possible to make an appointment on site,” she said.
“To deal with scalpers, we strictly check the identity of each patient. If someone frequently makes appointments and then cancels them, we get alarmed.”
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