For our Journalism class our instructors asked us all to go to Cinematheque to watch the documentary film ‘The Waiting Room’.
‘The Waiting Room’ is an intimate invitation that takes a look at “24 hours, 241 patients, and one stretched ER,” as director Peter Nicks describes it on the movie’s website whatruwaitingfor.com.
It is a documentary film that does not glamorize nor play down the American health care system in a public emergency room of Highland Hospital in Oakland, California.
Unlike other documentarians, such as Michael Moore and his take on the American health care system in ‘SiCKO’, Nicks allows the story to be told straight from those who are directly effected by the American healthcare system, the patients, the families, and the doctors.
The story is driven through its 81 minutes by those people with the use of voice overs. You never hear or get the idea of Nicks point of view on the topic because you never hear his voice, and the editing is done well enough that there are no outright clues within the film either. This gives the story a very fair, but edited, telling of the actual events that go on in one given day in the emergency room in Oakland with the camera being seemingly invisible.
At the beginning of the film you are introduced to many different stories of what brought certain people to the emergency room that day. After hearing about their stories you are immediately introduced to the doctors.
Having this shown at the beginning of the movie (especially editing it so it’s right after all the waiting room stories) Nicks shows that both parties are really on the same side, the only hint of Nicks possible point of view. Nicks even separately captures the patients and the doctors speaking about the flaws in the system.
Two of the hospital staff members that stood out to me were Dr. Douglas White and Cynthia Y. Johnson. Dr. White, is a Resident at the hospital, and is shown caring deeply about his patients. I like to believe this is something that wasn’t acted out for the camera. He advocates for one of his patients and makes a phone call to work a deal for them in the benefit of their health.
Johnson is a Certified Nurse Assistant who was the crowd pleaser. She has a personality that put smiles on the people in the waiting rooms face as she triages them, but she wasn’t afraid to put those who challenged her in their place when needed. In my opinion she stole the show.
The most compelling story of the patients though was that of Eric Morgan. He is a 20-something year old man who has come to Highland Hospital to have treatment for a testicular tumor.
The most shocking of his story though was what brought him to Highland. The hospital he went to before was all set to do surgery on him and then cancelled it the morning of because he didn’t have the money or coverage for the said “urgent” surgery. So he went to Highland and still wasn’t able to get the proper treatment because he did not have the funds to do so.
There are no sit down interviews throughout the documentary. I believe this lets the overall story, and sub-stories of the patients, grow naturally, which in turn is compelling to the audience more so then if it was interrupted by the interviews in a formal sit down format.
Overall as a documentary Nicks crafted the health care story well in a way that isn’t overwhelmingly screaming it’s side at the audience. However, it doesn’t provoke any debate after its 81 minutes is finished. The film is very much on the fence and doesn’t evoke questions other than those of how the patients ended up.
My mother is a nurse at St. Boniface Hospital so I have always been hearing about her opinions and stories regarding health care and hospitals since I was little. She has even had to deal with some of my health problems in the American as well as the obvious Canadian system.
One story that she told me, that I thought had to be made up, was dealing with the American health care system. We were on a family trip in Florida when I was around three years old and I got really sick and needed to go to the ER. Before the doctors would see me they gave my mom forms to fill out and asked for a credit card. I was three and in severe need of care, and the first thing they asked my mom was what her credit card number was.
Fast forward to this past summer when I broke my wrist. I was playing soccer when the ball hit my wrist hard enough to break it. I went to a hospital’s ER that night and after 10 hours of waiting with my mom we left.
The triage nurse was nothing like Johnson and wouldn’t even x-ray my noticeably offset wrist.
I understand that I would be low on the wait list but next to me was a guy who was profusely vomiting and across from him was a guy with part of his finger cut off. We all came in around the same time and all waited the same amount of time as well, and the only progress that was made that night was watching Brent Hayden win bronze in swimming at the Summer Olympics.
I am only using ER examples because that is what the movie was about. Regarding preventative care I have had nothing but good experiences, but when emergencies come around that changes.
Health Canada says on their website, “The basics remain the same – universal coverage for medically necessary health care services provided on the basis of need, rather than the ability to pay.”
One thing that I am most proud of in Canada is the fact that health care is free. I believe asking for someone to show you their pocket book before they check your heart beat is disrespectful to the citizens in your country, and I understand baggers can’t be choosers so I understand why the waiting list is there.
Canada has a publicly funded system opposed to America’s more privatized program. In the panel discussion after the movie Robert Chernomas mentioned how the Canadian health care system will slowly start looking more like the American system in the years to come.
He mentioned how Stephen Harper’s Health Accord will begin funding at a lower level and the province will have to pick up the slack. Also it was mentioned by Chernomas that, “It is not an economic problem it is a political problem”.
I hope that if this is true that they find a way to make already put in place programs more feasible so the wait times can be cut down. I understand that there will be wait times regardless, but there has to be a line so a man with a piece of his finger missing can get in to see a doctor before they can’t help him anymore.
Manitoba Health states on their website that, “Research shows that more funding alone will not result in shorter waits times. Long-term changes, such as the development of clearly defined standards for treatment, improved information management and more efficient use of existing resources will help ensure patients get appropriate and timely care.”
Both systems aren’t perfect and I don’t expect them to be. Nothing like that can be perfect when there are so many factors working against it. I just hope for the sake of the patients, the families, and the doctors that something is worked out so 20-something year old man with a testicular tumor, a man profusely vomiting, another with a mangled finger, and a 20-something year old girl with a bad soccer wound can all find the help they need without cost, whether it be time or money.
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