Help, I'm broke

So, I got a bit of a problem... No matter what I seem to do, I'll always end up completely broke and deep, deep down in debt.
I've got a general surgery department that's only losing money, the wages are way higher than the income.
Am I doing something wrong?

No, you only didn't find how to make money It is difficult, but opening hospitalization part is very expensive and can lead to broke. The key is prestige and balancing staff and patients. With prestige above 70% you get 20% higher payments from insurance companies. Also taking loans is very risky - interest payments are high and if you don't have income ...

One of the options is to go with a lower number of low skilled personnel and help them manually. One needs to realize that he can't have a greatly skilled personnel and full capacity at the start or cure every patient. It's better to send some patients elsewhere than spending too much on tests and different examinations (sometimes only to find out that you can't cure them anyway).

I build out all of my clinic offices with interns and residents only before I start hospitalization zones

The nice thing is if you hire doctors as interns or residents they are significantly cheaper as attendings, fellows, and specialists than those levels of doctors are if hired directly. So, in the long run, dealing with inexperienced doctors for a time can really pay off.

Also make sure you are focusing on the insurance goals early on, those $20k grants are really important early on to recoup the investment of, say, adding a new department.