Hospitals

Derived from the Latin hostes, meaning Host, hospitals and hotels have much in common. You pay through the nose, the food is terrible, and the beds are uncomfortable as hell. Unlike hotels though, many hospitals have a ward system, a throwack to the days of common sleeping rooms in the inn.

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Medieval hospitals were dirty, dingy, cramped places. Nothing has changed in 600 years. Modern hospitals are scientificly designed to be uncomfortable, confusing and enraging, with never enough beds, chairs or change for the coffee machine.

Corridor beds are popular among the cogniscenti.

There are four main groupings of people who attend hospital:

Outpatients

These unfortunate souls visit the hospital for a short period to be diagnosed, tested, patched up and harrassed before being kicked out again. Busiest on a Friday and Saturday night when the bar fights finish, though there is a steady, round the clock trickle of children with their heads stuck in pans and builders who have shot themselves with nail guns out of boredom.

Inpatients

Also known as bedhogs, these people are usually kept in following complications after surgery to loll around in uncomfortable beds, pee in cups and prove that people will eat anything if they are hungry enough. The complications tend to include the diseases you have caught from the person in the next bed.

Visitors

They mill around, steal your grapes, disrupt the wards and treat the various patients as a free freakshow to while away the time before America's Got Talent.

Tramps

These sit in the ER waiting room to stay warm. Apart from occupying most of the seats, they are harmless.

Most of the staff you will deal with in a hospital are nurses. Seriously dedicated people, usually women, who have undergone 4 years training in the art of making you uncomfortable.

Doctors and surgeons consider themselves the elite of the hospital staff, as admitting they are significantly less vital that the janitor, after 7 years of training, is too much to bear.

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