I've heard of some psych wards that work that way. They have a holding room that patients have to wait in before they are admitted onto the actual floor and given a room. These tend to be the public hospitals in our area. I would never go to one of those hospitals.

They don't all work that way. The hospital I have used doesn't have that holding tank system. You are admitted and given a room immediately. In fact, if they don't have a room available, they won't begin admission at all but will send you to another hospital (I've never had that happen though; they usually have a few beds open up each day). One thing you might want to do for future reference is find out what hospitals have psych units and investigate how their system works so that you won't have repeat of that situation.