Paused hospital diets and ate nuts (9)
I believe the answer is:
hesitated
'paused' is the definition.
('hesitate' can be a synonym of 'pause')
'hospital diets and ate nuts' is the wordplay.
'hospital' becomes 'H' (abbreviation for hospital on maps).
'and' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'nuts' indicates anagramming the letters (nuts can mean crazy).
'diets' after 'ate' is 'atediets'.
'atediets' anagrammed gives 'esitated'.
'h'+'esitated'='HESITATED'
(Other definitions for hesitated that I've seen before include "Was not keen" , "Paused, wavered" , "Thought twice" , "held back" , "was indecisive" .)