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2001 FEB 22 -- (NewsRx.com) -- One in five patients with acute symptoms of a sexually transmitted infection is unlikely to be seen at a genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinic within the recommended 48 hours in Great Britain, researchers reported in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.
Over one million patients were seen at GUM clinics in 1999 -- more than twice the number at the start of the decade.
The lead clinician in each of the 258 U.K. GUM clinics was sent a questionnaire asking how quickly they thought patients with one of two symptom scenarios would be seen. The symptoms indicated acute, transmissible, and severe viral or bacterial infection. Health care staff posing as patients with the same set of symptoms also contacted clinics by phone, asking to be seen as quickly as possible ("Access to genitourinary medicine clinics in the United Kingdom," BMJ, 2001;7:12-14).
Almost 80% of the doctors contacted responded. And almost all them said that patients with such symptoms would be seen within 24 hours, and that there were ...