This city’s hospital is about four years old.  Before that I was chosen to attend a one week long workshop.  It was to develop what the new hospital’s features will include.  I was the advocate for the Mental Health Ward.  It was long hours but everyone was excited in working during this major event.

Looking under the hood is basically speaking to buying a car. I want to use it to describe what I discovered being admitted to the new hospital.  It looks impressive, feels good also, but it is what the inner workings that count.

When they finally brought me up to the hospital room I thought, “wow”, very nice.  I was there close to lights out and to get some much needed sleep.  The next morning I began to look under the hood of this new hospital that was one hundred million dollar plus in cost.

First, I try out the much touted “Free Television”, what I found was basically an over loaded Windows Surface Tablet.  The free television consisted of about six or seven channels in an app.  I then moved on the the wifi accessibility. What a joke, very limited, browser that was out of date.  The Gmail App did not work, the Google App was also very limited in the access to most sites.  The USB keyboard was non functional, the on board keyboard difficult to maneuver.

The rest room was large and looked like something out of first class airplane. Nice sink, normal toilet.  It did have a shower but on closer inspection it also could not be used. The designer had the bathroom on an elevated floor.  Therefore using the shower would mean flooding the patient’s room.

So dear reader the adage of “if it is too good to be true it probably is”.  Always take time to look under the hood.