You may want to consider why the hospital has limited access to some sites and
what you may be impacting by getting around the limitation. Even if the
hospital has created a separate network for patients to use, chances are good
that everyone shares the same connection to the Internet.

Actually, the OP sounds a lot like an ad for the site he mentioned.

the network admin at the hospital has locked out these
things for a good reason - trying to get around it may end up in all
internet access being pulled !!

Do either of you have an off-site box he can ssh into? If so, connect from
his computer with ssh configured as a SOCKS proxy, then configure his
browser to use the local ssh proxy.

He'll be limited by both the hospital's speeds, as well as the up- and
down-link speeds of the remote computer, but it may be better than nothing.
YouTube may be intolerable, but basic web sites should work.

It's also possible the hospital's content filter will block the outbound ssh
traffic, in which case, good for them for having it set up properly. Using a
non-default port for ssh may improve odds of success. The only way to know
for sure is to test.

I'm not sure what the legal ramifications are. He may have signed onto an
acceptable use policy and be liable if he breaks it. I'm no lawyer.

Yeah I went and saw him last night (Weds). Brought him a bunch of movies on my
flash drive. And no that's not an advertisement to go out and buy the latest
flash drives!

I think by the time we get anything like a SOCKS proxy setup he'll be out of
there. I also agree fully with the point made that there's a good reason the
admin limited the access. I just thought there was some easy way around this
that wouldn't affect the network in anyway.