DIRTY toilets, expensive medical bills and bad food were the major complaints among patients even though the satisfaction level for local public hospitals was up by 2 percentage points, a new survey showed yesterday.

Among other irritants were issues of privacy in both outpatient and inpatient departments, complicated and time-consuming outpatient flow, long waiting time for elevators and noises in outpatient department.

Over 9,000 patients took part in the survey which was conducted by the Shanghai Medical Ethos Association and Fudan University at 28 city-level hospitals, four district-level hospitals and eight neighborhood health centers.