Since July 28th, 2011, Beijing unified platform for appointment and registration was officially opened, more and more hospitals and patients began to get used to using Internet or telephone to make appointment and registration. However, five years after the implementation of appointment registration, hospitals in Beijing still queue up all night.
In the early morning of August 16th, a special queue of body double was formed outside the outpatient building of the First Hospital of Peking University, with small folding benches, plastic bottles filled with water and cloth bags filled with sundries.
Next to this "body double" team, some people sit on the floor, others lie down with newspapers, rolled summer mats and clothes, including patients and their families, as well as scalpers.
No.47: Rent a "body double" with 5 yuan money.
In the team composed of mineral water bottles, benches and various sundries, Wang Fan sitting on the bench is particularly eye-catching. More than 20 hours ago, Wang Fan and her husband took their daughter from Shanxi to Beijing by train.
In the early morning of the 15th, a family of three arrived in Beijing and found a hotel for more than 200 yuan a night near Xishiku Street. At 10 o’clock that night, Wang Fan came to the First Hospital of Peking University. Originally, she wanted to "find out when to start hanging the pediatric expert number", but dozens of benches and bottles that had been "queued" startled her.
"I quickly called my husband and asked him to take the children to sleep first. I will come for me at 3 o’clock in the morning and I will bring the children in the morning." Wang Fan said, I didn’t expect it to be so difficult to hang an expert number. "I knew I would have come to the queue early."
Wang Fan, who was not familiar with the situation, didn’t bring a stool, but not long after, a man at the gate of the hospital leaned in and sold her the small bench in line, the deposit and the rent 15 yuan. At dawn, he hung up the number and returned it to the bench and then returned the deposit to 10 yuan.
Wang Fan, with her knees folded on a small stool, ranked No.47. Her 10-year-old daughter’s illness and the stool rented by 5 yuan money supported her to get through the long night’s drowsiness.
She pointed to several empty stools with similar styles in front of and behind her, saying that they were all rented as "body double" queues. The owners of these stools are mostly lying on a few pieces of cardboard under the eaves of the hospital, waiting for the number to be released in the morning.
Wang Fan, who came to Beijing for the first time to see a doctor, still doesn’t know if he can get the number. "If not, I’ll come here early with the bench."
No.53: The ownerless "body double" was kicked away.
In addition to the rented benches, there is a row of beverage bottles in the 63 "body double" queues.
Ranked 40 is a coke bottle with a red belt, and its owner, Lao Geng, is resting under the eaves of the outpatient building.
It’s not the first time for Lao Geng to queue up here. He wants to hang a nephrology department. He said that tying a belt to the coke bottle is to distinguish it from other bottles, so as not to be confused, and "people in the hospital can also see it".
The "people in the hospital" mentioned by Lao Geng are two security guards who came to inspect and maintain order in the hospital.
At about 0: 00 in the morning, two security guards came out of the hospital. Security guards along the "long line" asked each owner of the "body double" in line, and the sleeping people woke up to claim it.
Arriving at No.40, Lao Geng replied loudly: "The bottle with the red belt is mine." After hearing this, the security guard nodded and continued to look for the patients in the back.
Ranked 53rd was a red plastic bucket, which was kicked out of the team by the security guard because no one claimed it after several inquiries.
No.34: The incurable disease has been solved for 2,000 yuan.
It’s not the first time for the old lady Cheng from Liaoning to queue up here, and the economic situation is not very good. She feels that every penny can’t be wasted, so she didn’t rent a small bench or buy a bottle of mineral water specially for queuing.
She occupied the 34th place with a cloth bag filled with fruit. This night’s queuing also saved her the cost of accommodation. The 67-year-old Mrs. Cheng also took her sick wife to the hospital. Her wife slept on cardboard, and she stared at the queue while catching mosquitoes.
The couple wanted to see a dermatologist. Mrs. Cheng rolled up her wife’s sleeve and showed red scars.
"This is almost ready. Before that, he was bleeding all over his body and it hurt terribly." When chatting with the people next to her, Mrs. Cheng said that she had spent 60,000 yuan in her hometown to treat the disease, but it still didn’t improve.
In the first half of this year, some relatives suggested looking for experts in Beijing. The old couple didn’t want to at first. "I’m old, but I still spend this money."
However, seeing his wife gradually depressed, coupled with the persuasion of relatives, with the idea of a last-ditch effort, Mrs. Cheng led her wife to Beijing. What she didn’t expect was that the expert quickly diagnosed his wife’s illness and then gave treatment advice.
"You don’t need to apply medicine, just take a medicine orally, and it will soon take effect." Mrs. Cheng counted the accounts with her fingers. The last time she came to Beijing to see a doctor, including the money for travel, accommodation and meals, she spent more than 2,000 yuan.
"The 60,000 yuan unsolved disease in my hometown will be effective in 2000 yuan in Beijing, and it is worthwhile to toss it." This time, the queue was for a follow-up visit. Because of the previous experience, the old couple came over with cloth bags and cardboard when the hospital was closing on the afternoon of the 15th.
23rd: An "episode" in the queue in the early morning.
That night, almost all the people queuing in the First Hospital of Peking University were patients from other places who came to Beijing to see a doctor. Li Shixiang, executive deputy mayor of Beijing, once said that there are 130,000 foreigners who come to Beijing to see a doctor every day, and many hospitals have seen many patients queuing up late at night to compete for an expert number.
After the hospital’s security guards called the roll, people gradually quieted down. In some places, there was even breathing, and occasionally there were applause from mosquitoes, but there were always some accidents in the queue all night.
At 1 o’clock in the morning, many people in the queue in their sleep were awakened by a sound of abuse. Some people opened their eyes in a daze and saw a tall woman dressed in black pointing at an old man lying on the ground next to the bench on the 23rd. The old man didn’t answer back when he got up.
At first, some patients scolded the woman for disturbing everyone’s rest, but the words of the woman in black gradually made the surrounding patients understand the truth: she found that the old man "harassed" a teenage girl sleeping next to him.
"The old man can be the little girl’s grandfather. First he took off the child’s shoes and touched her feet, and then he touched the child’s stomach." When a woman talks about what she saw, her face is still sad. The harassed little girl also admitted to her father that she woke up after being touched, but she didn’t dare to say anything because she was afraid.
The crowd gathered around became angry when they learned about the situation. Some people accused the old man of "disrespecting the old", while others picked up nearby plastic isolation piles and threatened him. Finally, the old man was driven out of the team.
"I’m a woman, too. I don’t like harassing people most at ordinary times. What’s more, it’s fate to line up with everyone here. Of course, if you can help, you must help. " After the old man was driven away, the woman in black explained to everyone.
No.1: The peddlers of the two dials occupy the best position.
After the "small episode", the onlookers gradually dispersed, and the outside of Peking University First Hospital at 2 am returned to calm. Xiao Liu, who is in his twenties, sat back to the enviable place and played with his mobile phone on the No.1 bench. Behind him, in the third to sixth positions, there is an identical black Mazar.
Xiao Liu made no secret that he was a trafficker. "If you give me money, I’ll help you number, or you can line up in the back, so there will definitely be no number." Seeing someone coming together, Xiao Liu skillfully introduced the business.
Mrs. Cheng said that everyone in the queue knew that he was a trafficker, but they all dared to speak out. "They have a way to put it in the front. If you want to be ahead of him, they will take your things away. You don’t dare to argue with them at all."
Wang Fan interjected a sentence and mentioned that when she first came to the hospital gate on the evening of the 15th, a trafficker came to sell her the number. "He kept telling me that there are four or five expert numbers every day. If you queue up for one night, nine times out of ten, you can’t get it. It’s better to spend some money to buy it with them."
Lao Geng also said that he had complained to the trafficker that their asking price was too high, and as a result, the trafficker got angry. "He yelled at me, because of you, you can’t rank in the top 20 at all."
Xiao Liu just smiled when listening to these comments: "To tell you the truth, the second and seventh Mazars are also traffickers, but they are another group, which has nothing to do with me."
"You can’t think that we robbed you of your number. On the contrary, you can’t rank without us. We also serve patients." Xiao Liu, the trafficker, explained this, and then his eyes moved back to his mobile phone screen and read the novel.
According to the information from the Municipal Hospital Authority, by the end of this year, the large municipal hospitals in Beijing will fully implement non-emergency appointment registration, and Xiao Liu’s business may have to find another way.
Wenhe photo/reporter Qu Chang
