The Goldman State
Ed Goldman is a longtime newspaper and magazine columnist, the author of five books and creator of The Goldman State, a three-times-a-week online column with subscribers in 40 states, Canada and Europe. A professional playwright, composer and painter, Ed has also taught journalism at five California Universities and community colleges. His bucket list includes becoming the victim of a corporate takeover. This podcast is an extension of his unique take on the world around us and his interpretation, with all the creativity imaginable, of what that would literally sound like if he were to speak it.
The Goldman State
Episode 89: A Hospital is Not a Home
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Ensuite facilities, food service, 24 hour service at your beck and call. What more could one ask for? Plenty, I might suggest.
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00:12 - Ed Goldman (Host)
Hi, this is Ed Goldman with the Goldman State Podcast. 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. First, nearly every bedroom would already have its own bathroom, complete with an emergency buzzer for household hijinks. Second, 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 finally, 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.
01:16
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 am 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 those 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 promise. 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 and Jerry's.
02:17
So 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. A minus when no one shows up with a 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 whiny pants. Here's a plus. The acoustic ceilings are pretty high in hospital rooms to allow for the spaghetti tangle of cables and wires contained therein. While this is aesthetically pleasing, especially if you've always had a tendency toward claustrophobia or you've grown to seven foot three inches 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. Here's a minus.
03:22
Unless your real estate agent gets the word out that the former Butts County Georgia Presbyterian Hospital is now a Del Webb retirement community containing yours and other homes, don't be surprised if there are those who think your new home also doubles as an emergency room. This means that instead of having your day interrupted by Jehovah Witnesses seeking to recruit you using nothing more lethal than a pamphlet printed on inexpensive paper, you may find yourself opening the door to a crook demanding at gunpoint that you save his kid brother's life, whose profusion of bullet holes is the result of a hunting accident in a bank lobby or, even worse, that same crook has in his non-gun hand a pamphlet printed on inexpensive paper. I'd recommend listening to the entire pitch printed on inexpensive paper. I'd recommend listening to the entire pitch. I'm Ed Goldman. My column, the Goldman State, comes out every Monday, wednesday and Friday. You can subscribe for free at GoldmanStatecom. Thanks for listening.