I hear ya. I was at some risk, ended with clots . . . in my arms. My real gripe was even when they inflated they were loose enough to just slip off. And in my non-expert medical opinion that meant they were not doing anything to actually prevent clots. Also mildly annoying to hear a nurse tell the guy in the other bed it was “a massage for your legs” 
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The sharing the room was the worst part. I thought having the first two guys quietly die while in the same room as me was pretty bad, but by the end of my 12-day stay, I’d have paid money to have a nice quiet death guy™ again. My second week, I got maybe 2 hours sleep a night, mostly because of my roommates raising a ruckus all damn night.
We may have had the same roommate. I shared a room with a guy for three days, and mercifully only two nights, and his snoring was so loud that I only slept in short fits during the night. He was nice guy, and his wife warned me about his snoring, but I was happy to see him go.
My daughter works at one of the Mayo hospitals, and I asked her about this. All of the rooms at Mayo are single rooms. Their rates are higher than average hospitals but probably not just because of the cost of single rooms.
As to the bed issue it’s not at all uncommon for people to have more difficulty going to sleep in a strange bed than the one at their home.
I think you are making the mistake of assuming your hospital stay is all about you. It’s not. As mentioned, the hospital staff are there to deal with your acute health problem, and then get you out of there as quickly as possible. Your comfort and convenience are secondary. Your care depends on the people caring for and treating you also being available, as well as the other patients they are caring for and treating, who may or may not have issues to deal with that take more/less time, so it will be difficult to predict and schedule people in an orderly way. I guess it seems chaotic but as long as everyone on your care team get’s their job done and you don’t die, and the doctor sends you home, they consider that a success. I doubt they care much about a yelp! review.
I do empathize with the problem of the OP. In the covid symptoms thread I mentioned my MIL, who was hospitalized for 5 nights/6 days and went into psychosis, behaving very out of character for her. I believe it was due to the hospital environment more than anything.
The one and only night I ever spent in a hospital I was kept awake for a good while because my roommate was watching “Robocop” on the television with the volume cranked way up. And all during the next morning, she was on the phone with her husband, nagging him about domestic minutiae that she wanted him to attend to.
But that night, after awhile, I did get some sleep because when my nurse came by later I exaggerated the amount of pain I was having so I’d get something to help me sleep. She gave me a shot of something and I was out like a light in about five minutes after that.
Or priority. Like the night I waited for over an hour for my nurse to come do the minor procedure she said she’d do in five minutes. When she got back to me she started to explain and I interrupted her and said “Don’t explain, I heard the Code Blue.”
My main hospital recently opened a major new addition, and one of the selling points was all single (private) rooms. Especially in locales where there’s competition from other hospitals, an increasing effort is made to provide decent amenities.
Getting inpatients discharged as soon as feasible isn’t just about making space for new arrivals. It’s difficult or impossible for the hospital to be reimbursed by Medicare or insurance for stays lasting longer than a predetermined optimal period. And you really want to be out of there ASAP, from the standpoint not just of creature comforts but also exposure to others’ germs.
Patient comfort has advanced considerably over the years at most facilities. I remember interviewing for residency at Charity Hospital in New Orleans and seeing the general multi-bed wards (shudder).
I linked to an article In this thread about the importance of sleep and it discusses some efforts to improve this for patients.
I worked in a hospital where the menu was designed and cooked by volunteer chefs from the community who picked inexpensive and healthy ingredients and made them delicious. People used to actually come to the hospital just to eat at the cafeteria. (Then we got some administrators from the Big City who felt our hospital should use the same big companies as bigger hospitals. They did not save much money, the quality plummeted and they alienated selfless and knowledgeable volunteers. But apart from that it was a great success. The food was okay, maybe more convenient to distribute, just not delicious).
The beds are uncomfortable because everything needs to be cleaned without destroying it. So they are not built for comfort but for utility of cleanliness.
The blood tests and other things that they wake you up for are because the tests take time and then a doctor needs to review the results, and decide what the next step in your treatment is. Start all that at noon and you are spending another night, another very expensive night for you and everyone involved, like your insurance company. Getting the results sooner might get you sent home sooner.
Staffing is still on the old seniority basis, the best people tend to work days and go home at night. You want them to be bothering you all day long. Or another expensive night.
And you, as the patient, can be thought of as a faulty product that needs to be repaired and sent on your way. Like a manufacturing process, keep the line moving. It seems cold hearted but you are in there to get fixed and they always need to keep the product line moving.
Not a hotel, not a spa, you really will want to get sent home after a very short time.
I am convinced that somewhere in the patient’s “permanent medical record” there is a notation: “Is this patient the kind that just wants a quiet place to heal, or it this patient the kind that must have the TV going at all times to take their mind off of their troubles.” Then the hospital does everything possible to pair the two different kinds of people in a semiprivate room.
I’ve been in too many times where I’ve been (mis)matched up to believe that this is random happenstance.
Sometimes - it’s just having to put up with the treatment.
Whatever I’ve been in for - I always have an IV running into my arm/wrist/hand. Trying to sleep without snagging the IV tube is very difficult - not to mention rolling over onto the site where the needle goes in.
I can understand the need to have the IV in place - but it is just one more discomfort.
And I do thank my lucky stars that I’ve never been in “tubes in every oriface” mode.
I haven’t been in the hospital for over 30 years, but I can say that the food has improved tremendously between the time my daughters were born and when their kids were born. My daughter got a lobster dinner for her and her husband when you youngest grandson was born.
They also had private rooms, which my wife didn’t get 40 years ago. Really old hospitals might not be as good.
Those things are amazingly comfortable. After experiencing those machines in the hospital I got a simpler device to use at home. Maybe in your 30s your legs don’t yet ache and cramp the way they will someday. You’ll remember then how you passed up this opportunity.
Hospitals even in First World countries used to be like this. The OP doesn’t know how good he has it.
My late mother spent a good deal of time in NHS hospitals in her later years and developed a strategy for making the experience as good as possible.
The first thing was to be nice to the junior staff. Get their names and talk to them - be “the nice old lady/guy in bed five”. Keep a notebook and pencil handy, so that when the “rushed-off-their-feet” doctor rattles off some new medication or treatment, you make a note, so that you can make sure it actually happens.
Tell the staff if there is a problem. If you have implemented point one, there is a good chance that they can do something about it.
I went into the hospital for 4 days, just about 6 weeks after Covid19 sent everyone home from work. I did not have Covid19 but I had to be separated from the mass of patients that did. Boy was the medical team glad to see and treat me!
The food was better than expected and I was more aware of the effects of Covid19 on the staff, so I cut them some slack. They were terrified of possibly passing it on to me and rushed to get me well and out of there. I was released from an empty hospital entrance into a strange new world.
Still, it sucked to be there. No matter how good the care is. So I can understand the OPs issues.
I was in the hospital for six days in January. It’s not a hotel. They are administering treatments to get you to the point where you don’t have to be there anymore.
Beds vary. Mine was better than yours. The bed itself was never the problem for me. The first bed they gave me had motors to sort of massage you, apparently to prevent bed sores. It was random and happened around the clock. It was awful and more like just being poked with a broom handle. I asked for a standard bed, which I got.
This is a good point and I don’t know why they haven’t come up with what would be a simple solution for this. Waking up at 4 AM and needing a nurse and groping for and being unable to find that damn thing that might be dangling down behind the bed or dragging on the floor or maybe in my lap and I don’t even know it just aggravates what is an unpleasant situation to start with.
Yeah, there is a good reason for it. If you are getting an IV there are things they need to monitor. I was having vitals taken every 4 hours, blood drawn every 12 (maybe 6?), and a glucose test (finger stick) every 12. That plus taking oral medication. I don’t think I slept more than 2 hours at a time for 6 days.
I will say that the scheduling isn’t ideal for the patient. But look at what they have to deal with: Nurse shifts changed every 12 hours, and for 6 days I never had the same nurse twice. They have to check records at the start of the shift to know what to do for each patient. Patient needs can vary wildly. Patients also rotate in and out. The situation is so chaotic that I am surprised they can do everything at all and do it accurately (give the right medication to the right patient, etc.), much less on a schedule that is convenient for each patient.