SHANGHAI Children’s Medical Center is offering the city’s first charity out-patient service every Thursday afternoon, when leading medical specialists will be available at the clinic for free.

The service must be reserved and the center will announce the shift of each medical specialist on its website and public WeChat account.

Patients can make reservations by calling the hotline 38626161, extension 86100.

Medical specialists are in great demand in clinical practice, and many patients have to wait weeks, or even months, to get an appointment. Out-patient service fees for top specialists are also usually several hundred yuan, a big expense for some patients.

Shanghai Children’s Medical Center introduced the charity service to offer one more channel for patients to receive out-patient treatment from top specialists.

A man with an 8-year-old girl traveled all the way from Liaoning Province for Dr Chen Jing’s charity clinic at the center yesterday afternoon.

His daughter has suffered symptoms related with blood disease but has not been able to get a clear diagnosis for five years.

The family had been trying to reserve an appointment with Dr Chen for months.

“We were very excited after getting a reservation and went to Shanghai immediately,” said the father, surnamed Hu. “We have strong confidence in Dr Chen and want to get a diagnosis for my daughter — the doctor is a leading specialist on children’s blood diseases in China.”

The patient was diagnosed with aplastic anemia in Dr Chen’s clinic and the doctor will arrange a stem cell transplant for the girl.