“Empty beds cost money, so hospitals have shed beds and occupancy rates now tend to be higher anyway.”
I was hospitalized back in April with pneumonia. Went from the doctors office, who sent me to the ER, from the ER straight up to the WhuFlu ward. A private room.
Five days and four WhuFlu tests later the hospital had to admit I just had pneumonia and sent me to the Pulmonary ward. Another private room.
While on the Pulmonary ward I talked to a nurse who had worked there 20+ years. ALL the hospitals rooms are now private. No longer do you share a room with someone else. In the last 10 years the hospital has been completely renovated and lost half of it’s beds by making every room private.
A huge departure from my childhood when private rooms were only for the wealthy and the hoi polloi, we of the unwashed masses, were relegated to rooms with four patients/room.
I had a hip replacement a year ago and the last night of my week long stay the suddenly moved me to the COVID ward. I’ve been told that was so they could get federal money by counting me as a COVID patient.