My mother had surgery a few years ago, and they were a little too willing to give her opioids truth be told. Like they asked her how her pain was, and she said it was pretty bad but not excruciating and they gave her some morphine type drug in her IV. So yeah, they probably have good reason to be wary of proscribing him pain meds if they're not doing it after a surgery like that. I will say the hospital brought this on itself by going along with this guy's delusions, so I don't feel much sympathy for them.