Today’s post is over the medical documentary The Waiting Room. I remember reviewing this movie last year after its showing at the True False Fest, seemingly being the single best movie about the state of health care in America. It was a documentary that didn’t force some facts or tired stories that we hear all the time about health care, but rather we got to see what it was like in a day of the waiting room of a hospital and for those individuals who only have this option available to them. It’s the best commentary on our system, an opportunity to put a face with the struggles of having few options to get better in life and the doctors and nurses on the front line, seeing the effects that their work has on the lives of those with few options.
Here is an excerpt of the original review. Enjoy!
The Waiting Room is a film that focuses on the real lives of those that have to deal with the system of healthcare, those that need it, but have few options and those that provide the healthcare, with long hours and arduous tasks ahead of them. This is a film that centers around the public waiting room of a busy Oakland area Hospital, where the room is packed to the brim at any given moment with people from all walks of the soci-economic scale. Those that have some coverage, those that have no coverage and the few that have no options left. The stories of the people there in the waiting room of the public hospital tell the tales that we hear as talking points from pundits and politicians. The stark reality is that there isn’t much in the way for help and what little resources are available must be rationed in a sense. Time is valuable and sense of fearing the diagnosis is almost as rattling as the emergency itself.
Read more here.
