Educational Media Reviews Online

This feature-length documentary observes (without the aid of a narrator, editorializing or statistical analysis) the sometimes gut-wrenching and sometimes tragi-comic activities and human interactions in the crowded emergency waiting room of the Highland Hospital in Oakland, California over a typical 24-hour day. The film uses an almost pure cinema vérité style, however it does also occasionally include the voice-overs of some patients and hospital staff, but without identifying them individually until the final credits.

The multi-cultural personal stories and healthcare frustrations of about seven patients and eight hospital staff gradually emerge as featured “stories” from these observations. We see a very sick little 10-year-old girl and her divorced parents, an un-insured young man who has been diagnosed with testicular cancer, a very hard working carpet layer who is dealing with chronic pain from bone spurs in his spine, a morbidly overweight abuser of alcohol and other substances with breathing problems, a very angry man struggling with ineffective dialysis treatments, a teenage boy who will not recover from a gunshot wound, and an elderly senile lady with no one at home to care for her. Although impressively good humored and dedicated, the featured staff in this public hospital (“care of last resort”) emergency room (including a sassy but caring nurse assistant, a scheduling nurse, three medial residents, two attending physicians and a social worker) all struggle vainly to deal with the overcrowded conditions and intimidating bureaucracy of a healthcare system stretched to the breaking point.

Unlike other recent documentaries that have attempted to expose or analyze particular problems in our dysfunctional US healthcare system, this film does not have a focused polemical political agenda or message. Instead it attempts to simply confront the viewer with the kinds of human suffering that a better organized and more equitable system might avoid. The film’s excellent production values draw on the Emmy Award-winning television experience of director-producer-cinematographer Peter Nicks. Its theatre distribution resulted in nearly a dozen film festival awards and it was short-listed for an Academy Award. The film will be most suitable for college or university students or well-educated adults concerned about the future of our healthcare system.