Survey: Toilets, bills rile patients

Dirty toilets, expensive medical bills and bad food were the major complaints among patients even though the satisfaction level for local public hospitals was up by 2 percentage points, a new survey showed yesterday.

Among other irritants were issues of privacy in both outpatient and inpatient departments, complicated and time-consuming outpatient flow, long waiting time for elevators and noises in outpatient department.

Over 9,000 patients took part in the survey which was conducted by the Shanghai Medical Ethos Association and Fudan University at 28 city-level hospitals, four district-level hospitals and eight neighborhood health centers.

The patients were asked to evaluate the hospital equipment, doctors and medical staff's service. They were also asked to comment on food available in the hospitals.

Similar survey was conducted late last year, when 6,500 patients were interviewed for their opinions on hospital service quality.

The number of people in the outpatient section was 91.03 percent, up from the 89.58 percent last year. About 98 percent of hospitalized patients said they were satisfied, which was up slightly from last year's 96 percent.

Local health authority has invested to improve the facilities.

"We have given suggestion to the health authorities and hospitals to improve the privacy issue for patients, like installing more curtains in injection rooms and between beds, perfect the registration and payment process so as to reduce the patients' time and enhance the administration in outpatient department," said Fan Guanrong, director of the Shanghai Medical Ethos Association.