The easy availability of healthcare facilities in the neighbourhood is one of the most important factors to consider before moving to a new locality. You cannot enjoy happiness without having good health. When choosing your home, it becomes essential to pick a place where you can crush the health goals – both yours and your family’s. Going to spas will give you glowing skin, while a gym will keep your body in shape, but living near a hospital can literally save lives.
Families, in general, have members ranging across different age groups and prefer buying a house near a hospital – or at least one which is not too far away. That said, living near a hospital has its own pros and cons. For some individuals, their houses are a beacon of peace and an escape from the hustle-and-bustle of the world. These people would find it very difficult to reside in a busy or noisy area. However, every family would feel safer and to some extent satisfied if there is a hospital nearby – regardless of their life-long preferences.
To enjoy the blessings of living near a hospital, be it as it seems, the first consideration that comes to mind is the hospital’s size, reputation, and its plans for future expansion – if any. The mere existence of several cars going to and from the hospital can become cumbersome, and if your home shares a road with the hospital, then you might find it quite challenging and frustrating.
Pros and Cons of Living Near A Hospital
This blog will highlight the advantages and disadvantages of living near a hospital, potentially covering the following aspects:
- Relish the convenience of nearby hospitals
- Potentially avoid load shedding
- Experience fast-paced medical help
- Potential increase in property value
- Abundance of ambulances and traffic clogs
- Disruptive patients and their attendees
- Exposure to sickness and death
- Limited pool of buyers
Now, let’s go over these pros and cons of living near a hospital in detail.
Relish the convenience of nearby hospitals
Enjoy the provision of quality healthcare almost right outside your doorstep. Health and fitness enthusiasts can enjoy the easy access to fitness specialists, dieticians etc. Forget about rushing through traffic and completing other tasks to reach your doctor’s appointment on time. Apart from that, if you or any of your loved one is suffering from a chronic issue, the closer you reside to a hospital, the better it will be as reaching hospitals would not be an alarming issue anymore. The large influx of traffic with patients in tow, however, may become a hurdle sometimes. Not everyone is a people’s person and with a large number of humans roaming around the vicinity, the comfort levels for the surroundings may take a downwards dive.
Potentially avoid load shedding
No need to spend extensively on UPS installations, or buying a generator or even going for the latest options of integrating Solar Panels, as nothing beats buying a house near a hospital as it offers a substantial escape for the load shedding that is still lurking around our country. One of the main benefits of living near a hospital is that it can help you escape the stress and inconvenience of electricity outages – as a specified zone, hospitals are exempted from excessive load shedding practices as it can become an uncalled hurdle towards patients’ safety. Houses that have the same power connections as that of hospitals are less exposed to the reality of load shedding schedules.
Experience fast-paced medical help
We hope that this doesn’t happen to you but unfortunately tragedy has a habit of emerging at the worst possible times. Buying a home near a hospital can help ease additional woes of calling an ambulance and fearing that it may not arrive in time. Getting medical attention is much easier when there is a nearby hospital. Reaching a hospital on time also reduces the variable chances of random complications emerging that the patient might end up facing. Easy access to prompt medical attention is one of the key factors why people feel safer when living near a hospital.
When an emergency arises, two key factors arise: how fast you recognize the emergency and how fast an emergency response team can reach you. Buying a house near a hospital can literally save lives because of the close proximity. There is no need to travel all across the city to find good healthcare facilities when you live close to a hospital. The additional services offered by hospitals can also help you with ‘beyond emergency services’ and completely evolve the way you manage your healthcare.
For example: You can literally walk into a hospital and demand treatment as compared to calling an ambulance, waiting for it to arrive and eventually take you to a hospital.
Potential increase in property value
Do hospitals increase property value?
Having a hospital at a stone’s throw from your home can potentially boost the value of your property. Consequently, your home becomes more attractive to buyers with unique healthcare needs. Living near a hospital can also help you get access to various opportunities like jobs. Moreover, ‘hospital zones’ usually have better infrastructural facilities – benefiting the area.
These specifically include the waste management systems around a hospital. With cleanliness being a hospital’s key factor, healthy environments may prevail around the vicinity.
If you want to know about other factors that affect real estate worth, read our piece on the amenities that help improve property value.
Abundance of ambulances and traffic clogs
One factor that ends up irking citizens residing near a hospital are the wailing ambulances going up and down the roads throughout the day – and night! Now, imagine ambulance sirens screaming all through the day, which is acceptable to some extent, but this won’t be the case when emergency services start roaring down your street at 2am in the morning. Waking up from sleep, due to this, can be a major nuisance to a lot of people gunning for a peaceful shut-eye.
However, the presence of doctors and med students around the vicinity can somewhat offset the annoyance. Plus, people also get accustomed to routines – although this one may require some additional effort.
Disruptive patients and their attendees
The existence of a heavy footfall and traffic also become an issue for some people but when compared to the potential advantages of living near a hospital, the weighing scale balances itself without a stark shift to either side – yet a bias will be present there.
Living in close proximity to a hospital will expose you and your family to the different types of patients undergoing healthcare procedures at the hospital. Being sick or injured is not funny but rather very annoying and irritating – so expect random encounters with cranky and edgy patients and their relatives when you fancy taking a stroll down the block.
Exposure to sickness and death
Yes, we’ve taken a dark turn here but this is important as for those living or planning to live near a hospital. There will be a lot of suffering going around – with everyone trying to sort their medical woes and there would be nothing that you can do to about it. Such a surrounding can be very emotionally demanding and draining when exposed to – which you will be as one of your neighbours is a hospital.
Another thing that tickles the mind is the possibility of infectious diseases spreading into the neighbouring areas – evidently YOUR neighbourhood. The spread of such diseases can be aided and abetted by a sudden change in the weather, that is if it starts to rain heavily and water starts to accumulate on the neighbourhood roads – and keeping the hospital waste in tow. The immediate concern would be of maintaining a hygienic environment. Medical waste, if not properly disposed of, can become a good breeding ground for various infectious diseases. If you see this waste floating around in the accumulated rainwater, no one would feel safe. However, this case may be kind of far-fetched from reality – but not totally fictional.
Limited pool of buyers
Although the property’s value near a hospital increases, there exists only a limited pool of potential buyers who’d be interested in purchasing a residential unit near a hospital. Mainly families with members on regular medication and prone to issues seeking medical attention will be interested in buying a house near a hospital – drastically reducing your target audience when the time comes to resell your house.
So, now that you what living near a hospital entails, would you opt for it? If you found this piece helpful, make sure to read our analysis on buying property near a school. In case you have any queries or comments, feel free to share them with us at blog@zameen.com.
