In what appears to be a welcome development, the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) will have an automated queue management system by May 15 that would help ease the sufferings of patients who are standing in long queues for hours.
Being the largest public sector hospital in the federal capital, over 10,000 patients are visiting PIMS on daily basis to OPD and are passing through a great ordeal as they have to stand in long queue to get registration numbers.
Managing long queues during peak hours has always been a huge problem, hence the installation of the automated token queue management system would not only help ease the woes of the patients to considerable extend, besides it would also help improve operational efficiency of the staff.
Mostly queues formed at healthcare facilities are universal phenomena and often caused a lot of frustration due to waiting for a long time; hence the automated queue management system is the best solution to overcome this problem. Keeping in view the situation, the PIMS management decided to install automated token machines in order to ease woes of the patients.
Talking to Pakistan Today, patients standing in queues complained that they have to pass through great problems to get the numbers in the facility. They were of the views that they had to pass through such hardships at every level, as first they had to stand in long queue to get registration numbers and then they had to keep on waiting outside doctors rooms for hours without knowing about their turns.
They complained that the situation in the lab was quite similar, where they had to face the same troubles. They said that if the PIMS management installed the automated token machines in the hospital, their problems could be addressed, because they did not have to rush everywhere to get first number but they would be able to see their numbers on the screens and moved forward accordingly.
Talking to Pakistan Today, PIMS Executive Director Dr Amjid Pomi said that they were cognizant of the situation; hence the process of installation of token/queue management machine has been started and the problems would be resolved once and for all. He said that tenders were floated long ago but got very high rate due to which the idea could not be materialised at that time.
However, he said that the system has been installed in children’s OPD and Maternal & Child Health Care Centre (MCH) in the facility. Dr Pomi said that a total of 11 automated token machines would be installed at various places till May 15. However, a senior official wishing anonymity told this scribe that the PIMS management has to make special sitting arrangements in the main OPD, because there was no enough sitting place where the patients and attendees could wait for their turns.
