Fellers, any clues, should ships hospital doors open inwards to the bathroom or outwards. Whats the regulation, if any?
The answer is OUTWARD. Public buildings have to consider safety factors that is likely to have large numbers of people in it. In the case of a fire or other emergency, these people need to be evacuated as quickly as possible. When a mob of people rushes an exit, it’s very hard for somebody to open the door inward. Everyone pushes up against the door, and there’s no room for it to open. Therefore an effective emergency door has to open outward, moving with the force of the mob. This is also why a lot of emergency exits are built with wide panic bars instead of ordinary door knobs. The basic idea is to build the exit so even the most out of control mob will be able to escape.
There’s another reason for outside doors as well. Any public building that contains a lot of people is normally required to pump in extra outside air to keep oxygen levels high and carbon dioxide levels low. This air is just brought in from the outside through the heating and air conditioning system. This usually over-pressurizes large buildings, so if you had an inward opening door, that over-pressurization would tend to push the door shut and make it really hard to open. With an outward opening door, it’s much easier to get the door open against that over-pressurization. The air pressure works with you to open the door.