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We find the hospital in hospitality

By Ed Goldman

Hospitals in critical condition and about to be shuttered—as well as those already being autopsied—are being converted into condo developments, according to various news outlets. The advantages seem plentiful: 

– Nearly every bedroom would already have its own bathroom, complete with an emergency buzzer for household hijinks;

– The buildings have extensive grounds, including outdoor parking acreage with confusing signs no one will miss. As a cautionary note, you might wish to remove the spikes that disallow people leaving your new home from changing their minds and backing up. Of course, if you couldn’t wait for your dinner guests to leave, consider this a no-extra-charge early warning system; and 

– Most of the hospitals are already wired for communications, central heat and often, purified air. This means if someone in the next room, or even neighboring condo, contracts COVID, Bird Flu or Bubonic Plague, chances are you won’t have to be masked in your own living room. This can save you money.

To be sure, certain adjustments would have to be made, just as they need to for other forms of conversion, such as dollars into Euros, five-year-old girls into five-year-old boys and Zen Buddhists into Sephardic Jews. 

For example, you really can’t leave that Code Blue alarm hooked up, especially if you have clever toddlers who get Oreo-and-milk cravings at all hours. As a countermeasure, many of the beds have restraints that could prevent one of those toddlers from reaching the devices to summon you. And if those don’t quell their 3 a.m. munchies, you can probably find some leftover 1950s-era ether masks in the storage cabinets to stifle their plaintive cries. I can still recall the nurse placing one of these on me when I was three-and-a-half years old and about to have my tonsils removed. The operation was a success but I never got the promised all-I-could-eat ice cream afterward. My Mom gave me Jell-O. Miraculously, this tragic deprivation didn’t turn me into a freeway sniper, thanks to years of counseling and a gift card to Ben & Jerry’s.

What are some of the other pluses and minuses of buying a new condo that was part of a hospital?

PLUS: If you buy a furnished place you won’t have to go out and buy an adjustable bed, a hanging TV set and a remote control to change channels and request meds whenever you want.

MINUS: When no one shows up with the requested meds because this is no longer a hospital room, you may become discouraged and absently ring for the charge nurse, who also won’t arrive—unless you’re married to one. (Then, of course, it’ll be even less likely he or she will arrive, especially if in your years together he or she has nicknamed you Whiney Pants.)

PLUS: The acoustic ceilings are pretty high in hospital rooms (to allow for the spaghetti tangle of and cables contained therein). While this is aesthetically pleasing—especially if you’ve always had a tendency toward claustrophobia or to have grown to 7’3″ tall—there are also practical benefits, like being able to attach a hoop to one of the walls and play one-on-one basketball as an after-dinner activity when your mate passes on strip-Scrabble.