Long queues cut short as patients go for online OPD booking

Kolkata: The online outpatient department (OPD) booking system introduced by the state health department a few months ago has become a hit among the patients as it eased the long queues in front of various OPDS at the government hospitals.

Earlier, the patients had to take the trouble of standing in the queue for long time before finally getting a ticket to enter into the departments.

It is often seen that the patients coming to the city's medical colleges from the districts wait for couple of hours before visiting the doctors.

The new system was initially introduced by the SSKM Hospital and later adopted by various other medical colleges in the city.

A large number of patients visiting various hospitals have been reaping the benefits of online booking.

A senior health department official said that the new system has been able to provide hassle-free treatment to the patients. In a very common picture, some of the hospital doctors used to face problems while parking their vehicles due to the long queues outside the OPDs.

The length of the queues has been cut short due to the implementation of online booking. Many patients are going for advance booking by visiting the state Health department's website. The method will become more popular in future as the people will become more aware about the new scheme.

According to sources in the SSKM Hospital, as many as 12,000 patients used to visit various OPDs on an average basis but, the number has recently gone down, as many patients and their family members have started using the online booking system. It may be mentioned that the patients need to pay Rs 2 at various OPD counters in the hospital, for obtaining a ticket. But in case of online booking, the patients don't have to pay any money.

For online OPD ticket booking, a patient has to visit department's website www.wbhealth.gov.in, where they will get an icon that reads 'e-governance' on the left column of the page. The patients have to click the button, which will take them to another page that says 'OPD ticket booking'.