Hospital award covering the sick at heart (7)

I believe the answer is:

medical

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'hospital' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't see how one could define the other.

'award covering the sick at heart' is the wordplay.
'award' becomes 'medal' (medal is a kind of award).
'covering' indicates putting letters inside.
'at heart' means to look at the middle letters.
The central letters of 'sick' are 'ic'.
'medal' placed around 'ic' is 'MEDICAL'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for medical that I've seen before include "Of the science dealing with treatment of disease" , "Relating to the art of healing" , "Relating to treatment rather than surgery" , "examination carried out by a doctor" , "Check-up - declaim (anag)" .)

I've seen this clue in the Sydney Morning Herald.

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