看病难还是看专家门诊难?

看病就医难成为公众热点，但是细看之下发现不是看病难，而是看名医难、看专家难，专家门诊忙得团团转，而一些普通门诊的医生却门可罗雀，没有充分发挥作用。从11月20日起，北京市25家三级医院将开放双休日门诊，希望能够有效地缓解大医院看病过于集中的问题。

Beijing Tongren Hospital is considered the most popular eye hospital in the country. Within one hour in the morning, all the time slots for specialists have been fully booked.

According to the hospital, there are usually five specialists available during weekdays, but on weekends, only two of them are on duty.

"There are few specialists on duty in the hospital; I want to book an appointment with specialist. And I was told I can make the appointment on Monday."

While it's extremely hard to get an appointment with specialist, it's not that difficult to make appointments with other doctors. However, most people still wait for specialists.

According to some of these hospitals, there are usually a large number of outpatients during the weekends, but the number of specialists cannot meet demand.

Many patients have appealed for more specialists to be available during the weekends. However, the number of specialists is limited in large hospitals, and for some patients, the hospitals suggest that they turn to ordinary doctors, specialists should not be their only choice.

And many patients come to see physicians for colds or fever. These patients are advised to visit a nearby hospital rather than flocking to the crowded large hospitals, because local ones are far less crowded on weekends compared with weekdays.

At the Beijing Shijitan Hospital, few outpatients are there on weekends, although it has started a weekend outpatient service, and many well-known specialists are available. Zhou Jingzhi from Shijitan Hospital says:

"There is a misunderstanding, which is that people tend to believe no specialists or veteran doctors on duty on weekends. However, lots of doctors on duty during the weekends are as proficient as specialists; their only difference is they are not labeled a specialist by the hospital."

The general hospitals are rarely crowded, while thousands of patients swarm into the specialized hospitals to wait for well-known specialists.

Experts say many patients have no idea whether they need to book time with a specialist, or if an ordinary physician or doctor can deal with their problem. They just blindly wait in line for the specialists.

Therefore, in order to make the best use of the specialists, patients need to analyze their illness.

In addition, many hospitals suggest that proper planning is required to make the weekend outpatient service a success.

Zhou Jingzhi says if the government can improve the allowances to doctors on duty during weekends, more doctors would be willing to work on weekends.

For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.