A total of 12 people were arrested for scalping appointment tickets in hospitals in Beijing on Tuesday, police said. 

Seven scalpers were captured on Monday morning at the Guang'anmen Traditional Chinese Medicine. Four of them were detained. 

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Five scalpers were also arrested at the Peking Union Medical College Hospital and Xuanwu Hospital in downtown Beijing. 

Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau said on Thursday that it has set up a special working group that will focus on the case's investigation. 

Patients, who seek non-emergency treatments, are required to purchase an appointment ticket first that will determine the order the patients will see the doctors. Because of the obviously flawed system, scammers litter hospital waiting rooms, sometimes even standing next to the ticket windows.  

Online and phone reservations are also available, but hospitals are still rife with scalpers.

"No matter how you manage, control and punish, you can only manage the scalpers on the surface. You can't control the business opportunities others are taking advantage of, depriving those less privileged of the opportunity of seeing a doctor," said Yang Qing, a cardiologist at the Huaxi Hospital in Sichuan province. 

Journalists are investigating as well. 

A reporter from state-owned Xinhua newspaper went to a hospital and was offered an appointment ticket worth ¥2,500 ($380) to see a renowned specialist. The reported found out later that the doctor was not seeing patients that day. 

A reporter from Sina also had an encounter with a scalper where he had to pay ¥300 ($46). The appointment was under a different name, but the reporter was told to say that her friend reserved the time for her. 

TagsBeijing Police, ticket scalpers in China, Xuanwu Hospital, Peking Union Medical College Hospital