Paying to use empty weekend operating rooms
- Kind
- Policy and health systems
Prompt
A hospital has a 14-month waiting list for knee replacement surgery. The operation is not urgent, but many patients on the list are in pain and some cannot work while they wait. The hospital's operating rooms sit empty on weekends because it cannot afford the staff. A proposal would let patients who pay $20,000 of their own money, rather than through insurance or public coverage, have their surgery on a weekend within a month. The hospital says each paid surgery would earn enough to fund one extra surgery for a patient on the regular waiting list, so everyone would wait less. Critics say it would create a fast lane for the wealthy and draw surgeons and nurses toward better-paid weekend work. As a member of the hospital board, would you approve the proposal?
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After you practice: what this question tests and how to approach it
What this question tests
- Ethical reasoning
- Health systems and advocacy
- Critical thinking
How to approach this question
This MMI station on health system funding tests whether you can weigh a two-tier option that may shorten everyone's wait against the fairness of letting wealthier patients pay to go first. Lay out who benefits and who might lose: paying patients, people on the regular waiting list, staff whose time could shift to weekends, and public trust in the hospital. Ask aloud whether the hospital's revenue estimate is reliable and how you'd protect weekday staffing. Weigh approving, rejecting, or approving as a trial with conditions and measures of success, and commit to a vote. When the station gives you a year of results, judge them against the conditions you set at the start, and say whether the benefits outweigh the costs.
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