Why is this considered acceptable?

Recently, a family member gave birth in a local hospital that had recently undergone remodeling. In fact, the entire wing of the hospital, including maternity, was new. Following her birth, she spent a few days in one of the maternity rooms. The room was huge and included a gas fireplace, flatscreen tv, a seperate section for the husband, which included a bed/couch, chairs, privacy curtain, a desk , and an additional flat screen tv.

The room next door was less than half the size and had none of the amenities. Of course, my initial reaction was one of disgust. This is clearly unfair to anyone who happens to get stuck in one of the smaller rooms. After some digging, I discovered that about half the rooms are the luxurious monstrosity that I was able to experience. The other half are cramped. According to the staff, it’s just pure luck and birth order that drives the room assignment.

So, my question is this: How can a hospital justify this? They had the chance to build a maternity wing from scratch, and decided to build 2 different experiences – for no apparent reason. The obvious solution (from my perspective) is to build all rooms the same.

My wife is a lactation consultant at a different, older hospital. There are big differences in the size and quality of the maternity rooms, but the building was built so long ago. Many of the smaller rooms were originally something else that was co-opted later on to accommodate more people.

Anyway, can anyone describe a reasonable explanation for such difference in services? Maybe I’m overlooking something. Is it possible that it’s not just luck? Is it possible that the hospital really does charge insurance companies a higher amount for the fancier rooms, so determination of room is based on health insurance (or lack of)?