In the past five months, the national referral hospital saw more than 1,500 patients seeking special consultation services. Most of them availed themselves of the medicine and dermatology services. Patients say access to healthcare services has become more convenient with special consultation services. A special consultation service is an off-hour service where patients have to pay a certain consultation fee.
The national referral hospital provides special consultation services from 4 PM to 7 PM.
The patients need to pay a fee ranging from Nu 100 to 5,000.
Almost all the healthcare services are available during the special consultation service.
The patients seeking the service said that the timing is convenient as they do not have to waste the whole day in the hospital.
“This service is very helpful because, during office hours, we have to go to work and be with our children. With this service, we can visit the hospital after office hours when we are free. I think it is fine to pay the fee because it makes life easier,” said Chencho Lham, a patient.
However, a few patients who did not want to come on camera said that the phone numbers provided by the hospital for special consultation are not in service most of the time.
To this, the medical superintendent of the hospital said that they did not receive any complaints regarding this matter.
“Recently, we have seen posts on Facebook complaining about the special consultation service. I want to clarify that we do not take appointments in advance. Patients should make an appointment on the day they want to avail themselves of the service. From our side, there are no issues and everyone is carrying out their duties properly,” said Sonam Tshering, Medical Superintendent.
The hospital started the special consultation services in October last year.
Namgay Dema
Edited by Tshering Zam
