Well Crab....being Yanks and all...perhaps they had to read the directions on the labels....and as we know those can be very long and written in very fine print.
I have sat at hospitals that long than that while my med crew packaged a patient for transport to another facility so who knows what they had to do to prepare the patient.
Physically moving him from a stateroom to the pickup point would take a bit of time itself.
It would be informative to read an account of the evolution by someone that was involved.....whoops...hang on...that would not work for you would it Crab.