
We read in the news that the Health Minister continues with what his predecessor set out to do: cut down waiting time in public hospitals.
Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai said yesterday that patients currently waited an average of 90 minutes before being attended to by specialists.
“I have already set a target waiting time for general outpatient treatment. Now, we will study what should be the ideal time for specialist treatment,” he said after a working visit to the Kajang Hospital.
Liow said the targeted waiting time for specialist treatment would not be 30 minutes that he set for outpatient treatment.
“One must understand a specialist takes more time to examine patients,” he said.
Doesn’t the Health Minister realize the irony of his statement in the last line? The reality of it all, is that after waiting for “specialist treatment”, the patient is in fact more likely to encounter a medical officer rather than a specialist in the “specialist clinic”.
I’d like to repeat once again the wise saying of Bushido@Dobbs (indeed I’ve incorporated this into one of the MMR Quotes which you see randomly displayed in the upper right hand corner of the page):
The practice of medicine is not like instant mee - it’s not how long you wait but what you get at the end which matters
Precisely, dear Health Minister. I think you should forget about waiting times. Concentrate on Quality. There are issues which are far more important to the doctors running the clinic which could improve efficiency. Lousy records management resulting in 404 situations (that’s Internet-speak for “file not found”). Missing or untraceable lab results. Computer system going down. Actual specialist not around - too busy attending some mesyuarat somewhere.
In any case, this pursuit of “shorter waiting time” is an exercise in futility. Why? That’s because many patients don’t keep their appointments anyway! They either don’t come on time or sometimes don’t show up at all. That’s the Malaysian style lah. You know, Malaysian time!
What I suggest is that the MOH (or any hospital for that matter) could put up a Doctor and Patients’ Charter which reads something like that:
We Guarantee Patients a Clinic Waiting Time of Not More Than 30 Minutes
** Terms and Conditions Apply
And in the small print, the T&C are:
1) If any patients don’t turn up on time or are late for their appointment, then the guarantee for the day does not apply as this messes up the appointment system.
2) Turning up earlier than scheduled does not necessarily mean you will be seen earlier, duh.
3) Turning up on the wrong day means we are likely to reschedule you to another day. There is no guarantee of being seen on a non-appointment day.
4) Don’t expect the specialists clinic to see you quickly just because you feel your problems are “urgent”. We have the ER for that.
5) Patients in the wards should be considerate enough not to suddenly become ill or arrest during clinic times as the doctors will have to leave or be late for the clinic to attend to them. If any of them do, then the clinic waiting time guarantee will not apply.
Any doctor working in a Government clinic will tell you that practically everyday, you’ll see 1, 2 or 3. So hey, it’s impossible to guarantee you short waiting times, dear patients, simply because some of you don’t know how to keep appointments! It works both ways!
Related MMR posts:
Ministry of Hell
10 things a new Health Minister needs to address