Long waiting time

Patients do not like to wait to see their doctors.

The commonest complaint received by most clinics is the long waiting time. Nobody likes to wait for long hours just to see their doctors especially when they are already feeling unwell.

The average waiting time at the government polyclinics is longer than 40 minutes. Most patients have to wait at least 30 minutes to see their doctors in the typical private GP clinics. The waiting time could be worse on Mondays or the day immediately after a public holiday.

I always wonder why patients like to “go together” to visit their doctors. On a Monday morning or evening you could see between 20-30 patients waiting to see their doctors.

However most GP clinics are typically very quiet in the afternoon from 3-4pm. Their clinics are also not as crowded on Wednesday and Thursday.

What can doctors do to shorten the waiting time?
Practically speaking the doctors could do nothing about the waiting time. They cannot control how many patients walk into their clinic at a given time slot. They know that their clinics are usually very busy on Monday and on the day after public holidays. But they could not hire an extra doctor because their clinics are usually very small with space constraint.

Neither can the extra number of patients seen on these busy occasions justify the salary of hiring another doctor. More importantly, most patients queue up because they want to see their regular doctor. They did not turn up at the clinics just to see a relief doctor (locum).

The only way that these doctors could shorten the waiting time is to spend less time with each patient. How could the doctor strike a balance to provide quality time with each of his patients without upsetting the other patients who are waiting outside? This is a big dilemma.

The patient who is being seen inside the consultation room usually expects the doctor to spend more time with them. At the same time the patient who is waiting outside expects the doctor to spend less time with the other person who is already inside the consultation room.

Waiting to see the doctor is only part of the problem. The patient usually has to wait a further 20-30 minutes to collect their drugs and make payment. This is an area where the waiting time could be shortened. The doctor can make the clinic run more efficiently by adopting technology to automate some of the processes of printing receipts, dispensing and printing medical certificates. Most doctors are already deploying more clinic assistants to work on busy periods like Monday morning and evening.

Doctors can also make the waiting period less taxing and stressful for the patients by making the waiting area more conducive. Screening TV programs help to occupy the time for certain group of patients but the noisy environment could also become a stress to another group of patients who wanted a quiet surrounding to rest.

Doctors are well known to be old magazine collectors. You could find many old and torn magazines in doctors’ clinic. They could provide more current issues of magazines for patients to browse. Some clinics are more innovative and have even provided wireless internet access for their patients to browse websites while they are waiting.

However, patients can do their part as well to shorten the waiting time for everyone. They could go online to view the waiting time and number of patients who are waiting at the polyclinics before visiting their doctors.

Patients could also help by wearing loose clothing when they visit their doctors. This will help to save the time taken to dress and undress for the medical consultation. Drugs should be properly labelled and organized before being brought to show their doctors. We often encounter situations where the poor doctor has to spend 5-10 minutes sorting out several bags of medications and vitamins brought by their patients.

If not acutely ill, patients could also opt to consult their doctors during the time when it is not so busy. Most GP clinics are typically not so busy in the afternoon and in the middle of the week. If they visit their doctors during this period, they are assured of a much shorter waiting time. The doctor who is not swarmed by a long queue of patients waiting outside is more likely to spend quality time with each patient during the lull period.