The Politics of Art & Authenticity

Anytime that the topic of any discussion turns to anything even remotely medical, I start to squirm. Usually this is because I tend to freak out when it comes to blood and needles, but I’m growing painfully aware that nothing good is coming out of our current healthcare system. After going to view “The Waiting Room,” my own experience of being stuck in a waiting room for a little over an hour pales in comparison to some of the stories this documentary revealed. I was shocked at just how crowded the room was, disturbed when I realized that all these people were without insurance, and appalled that we can call ourself a “first-world country” when our medical system is this bad. Beyond all that, however, the film gave me hope that this system can be saved, all thanks to an unbelievably optimistic and friendly nurse, and a doctor with superhuman stamina who’s seen working nonstop.

When you have people waiting in a line for hours on end, it’s inevitable that you’re going to get a few irritated “customers” when their number’s called, and when you’ve probably dealt with a bunch of them – in various states of medical distress no less – you usually get irked parties on both ends. Not with the triage nurse shown tirelessly assisting patients as they wait to be called to see a doctor. She genuinely cares for each and every patient’s well being, and she remains cheerful and sociable from start to finish, which is a welcoming sight when you’re witnessing a documentary that’s exposing the terrible flaws of the hospital system. She cares, and the fact that she goes that extra mile to bring even a small smile to her patients’ faces is a sign that if people like her can exist in this corrupted system, then it can get so much better, and be so much better for everyone involved.

The other “character” that stood out to me was one of the emergency room doctors, Dr. Scruffy, if you will.

It speaks for itself.

All throughout the film you see him running from patient to patient, going in to perform surgery and then heading back to make sure a stroke patient is able to find a way to pay for his medication. Then you see him holding a well-worn conversation with a repeat patient at the hospital, and the moment when he makes the decision to keep the man overnight because he has nowhere else to go is unbelievable. He’s an E.R., doctor, and he admits that his job is just to go and treat patients. Once that’s done, he moves on to the next. It’s not his job to worry about the safety of patients after they leave the hospital, but he does anyway – because nobody, and no other system will.

You cannot deny we have a broken, underpaid healthcare system, this film reveals too much to argue otherwise. But, maybe, if the world sees that there’s people like this nurse, and this doctor, overexerting themselves to the point of probably exhaustion for the sake of humankind, then maybe we can realize we need to make some changes.

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