CTM now feels as formulaic as a Danielle Steel book*, one hat with names, the other with story lines, draw one each, job done.
Trixie seems to become more shallow every week, Dr T more saint like.
In the early years, you'd sometimes get a "re-visit" of a story line in a later episode, like little Susan, for example.
I was fully expecting that for the young widower who lost his wife in the last episode of the previous season, but nada.
For the hospital visits: I grew up in Germany, was in hospital for 10 days in 1985, I was six at the time and my mum wasn't allowed to stay, only to visit between 2pm and 6pm every day. No children under 6 were allowed on the ward as visitors, so to see my siblings, we had to go into the hospital garden. From what I remember about that hospital stay: I shared a room with two other girls around my age and we treated it as a sleep over kind of thing. The other thing that stood out was the food, which was really good.
*I do like to read a DS book every now and again when I want something where I don't have to think too much and know that there will be a happy ending of sorts. But they are very, very light reading.