That is the general rule and it is almost the whole of the rule.

The estate pays what it can, in a statutory order, and when the estate runs out, the unpaid creditors get nothing.

A surviving spouse is not, as a general matter, personally liable for the debts of the deceased.

Walter Strand had no estate.

Nothing.

There was nothing to probate and nobody opened anything and there was never going to be one dollar available to a hospital.

Which would have been the end of it.