The Waiting Room, By Director Peter Nix Essay

The documentary The Waiting Room presents a safety-net hospital located in Oakland, California. In the film, director Peter Nix follows patients, doctors, and staff throughout a typical day. Furthermore, the film displays how the staff is overworked, causing an impact regarding how the American health care system is affecting millions of uninsured patients who try to cope with injury and disease. The film utilizes techniques from the observational mode such as long takes, crisis structure, and documenting unplanned everyday experiences to convey the cruel realities of Americans seeking hope and treatment.

In the wake of a natural disaster, people are forced to come to the realization they may not make it out alive; this was the thought of over 180 patients who were at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina hit. Sheri Fink’s Deadly Choices at Memorial tells the story of what doctors and nurses had to do when the hospital, which was being used as a shelter, lost all power and had to evacuate all 180 patients in August of 2005. Usually most people have time to think about their choices so they are certain they are making the correct one, but in a time of crisis the doctors and nurses on staff at Memorial had to make harsh decisions about who of the 180 patients they would evacuate, who would go first, who would go last and who would have to stay behind. Fink’s article

The Waiting Room is a 2012 documentary film and social media project directed by Peter Nicks that follows the life and times of patients, doctors, and staff at Highland Hospital , a safety-net hospital in Oakland, California. The project includes a blog which features stories and conversations from the waiting room as well as behind-the-scenes information about the project. Frequent video updates from the project are posted on the blog. These videos examine what life is like in an American public hospital caring for a community of largely uninsured patients. Many hospitals and health systems provide charity care for uninsured individuals when they require acute care, but the most forward thinking ones are also concerned with caring for this

Meanwhile, elsewhere in Habersham County, Tom was feeling slightly nervous as he exited the staff lounge and entered the hustle and bustle of County Hospital’s ER to begin his first shift as an RN. The first few hours of his shift passed slowly as Tom mostly checked vital signs and listened to patients complain about various aches, pains, coughs, and sniffles. He realized that the attending physician, Dr. Greene, who was rather “old school” in general about how he interacted with nursing staff, wanted to start him out slowly. Tom knew, though, that the paramedics could bring in a trauma patient at any time.

The documentary The Waiting Room, is about a safety-net hospital called Highland Hospital located in Oakland, California. In the film, director Peter Nix follows patients, doctors, and staff all throughout a typical day at the hospital. Furthermore, the film displays how the staff is overworked, and how the American health care system is affecting millions of uninsured patients who try to cope with injury and disease. The film utilizes techniques from the observational mode like: long takes, crisis structure, and everyday experiences that unfold spontaneously to transmit the cruel realities of uninsured patients who go to Highland Hospital seeking hope and treatment.

The Global News article brings to light how bad the wait times in emergency rooms really are with people 55 and older waiting more than 2 days to see a doctor. This article informs the public of the situation providing enough statistics and resources in a reader friendly tone, while giving examples of how a province, like Saskatchewan, is

This book has an introduction, a total of 20 chapters, and a conclusion. King organizes her book by expressing how her daughter, Josie, passed away at age four due to a hospital error. She then gives contextual information about the family in the following chapter, leading up to when Josie was first taken to the hospital, and how Josie’s passing enabled King to revolutionize the healthcare industry regarding patient care. King narrates the novel in first person, and reveals her experience in a chronological order.

With so many cases of unfilled position in the hospital patients is not obtaining great services. Patient not receiving proper cares leads to closures, because of prolonged postponements that have led to deaths. Patient complaints at the emergency room have increased in recent years. Numerous patients that were admitted to the hospital’s emergency room are at high risk of dying. Six percent of emergency rooms in the U.S. have closed. These closings took place in the inner-city and low-income areas, but with an emergency room visit increasing by nearly 51%, the overwhelming amount of closures.

Emergency departments are considered an important aspect of the health care system. For many years, wait times have been an area of concern for many Canadians and remain a significant issue. One of the major concerns within the Canadian health care system is the amount of time spent as waiting time in the healthcare services. Wait times are the length of time from when the patient is triaged and registered, to when the patient leaves from the emergency room (Affleck, Parks, Drummond, Rowe, & Ovens, 2013). Whether waiting for a doctor, waiting for prescription medication, or even waiting to get tested, the reasons for wait time in Canada are caused by many factors (Cole, Hopman, & Kawakami, 2011). This paper will seek to examine the factors contributing to longer wait times in the emergency department, examine the ways in which wait times impact society, and conclude by presenting possible solutions to reduce wait times.

“Right this way,” the nurse ahead of me was prompting me to a brightly lit hall that was completely foreign to me. I couldn’t help but be terrified by the sights and sounds around me: people chattering, machines methodically beeping, gurneys rushing past. It was my first time in a hospital and my eyes frantically searched each room looking for any trace of my father. She stopped suddenly and I turned to the bed in front of me but I could not comprehend what I saw. At such a young age, I idolized my father; I had never seen him so vulnerable. Seeing him laying in a hospital bed unconscious, surrounded by wires and tubes was like witnessing Superman encounter kryptonite. My dad’s car accident not only made him a quadriplegic, but also crippled

Queuing is feature of our daily life, whether in an airport, a post office or Emergency Departments(ED), few of us wishes to wait too long for service. The clinical cost of waiting too long for urgent treatment in an ED is all too long for service. Following media headlines, pooled with powerful political agenda lead to, in the late 1990s and the early 2000s many ED in the UK were struggling with high demand and poor patient flow. During this period it

Lengthy time wait can result in an individual becoming more sick, due to the lack of attention they are receiving. In the province of Alberta, a women says “her life is wasting away after a series of miss communication.” Its been almost 10 years, and she still hasn’t received her treatment. As a country viewed as one of the best countries in terms of healthcare, the government fails to provide the citizens with proper care. However, analyzing Canadian wait time from a decade ago to the present day, Canada is ranked number 11 on the lowest wait time according to First minister accord. Canada advance to the top of the ranking by improving on some steps, such as diagnosing problems fast. By diagnosing the problem first, health care worker are able to aid patients to get the best and most efficient health services. Also, the main foundation to a a shorter wait time is the a strong and cooperative staff. With a great staff that are communicating, its easier to get through many patients in a day. (https://secure.cihi.ca/free_products/HCIC2012-FullReport-ENweb.pdf) If majority of our taxes is contributing into healthcare, we should be provided with fast and efficient service. Another alteration with having a lengthy wait is it affects individual who are in need of a

I looked around the cramped waiting room and took a deep breath. I took another one as I tried to sink further into the uncomfortable black plastic chairs that everybody who waited for him sat in.There were a lot of things about this room that made me want to bolt out of the door- the sound the secretary’s long claws made as she typed on her computer, the smell that could only be described as a cross between sterile hospital and forest, Everyone else that was sitting inside of that office pulling at their collars and making noises to draw attention away from themselves, and the big gold letters on the wall that spelled out Dr. Luke Jones M.D..

My supervisor, one of the head nurses, hurriedly pulled me to the corner of the bleach white hospital room and directed me to put on gloves, an eye mask, and a face mask. I felt as if I was preparing for war as I put on all of the required gear. The sound of expensive shoes click-clacked down the hallway indicating the arrival of two doctors who rushed into the room and shouted out orders to the staff while pulling the doors to the room shut along with the curtains. Two doctors, eight nurses, an intern, and a dying patient squeezed into the already claustrophobic ten by fifteen-foot room. The machine monitoring the patient’s vital signs continued to beep incessantly as my heart rate accelerated. Throughout my internship, I had never seen a patient in critical condition until that moment. I remembered my teacher’s advice if we were ever in a situation such as this: take a few deep breaths and sit down if you feel like you’re going to pass out. In that

The emergency room has become the new primary care facility for the millions of uninsured in the United States. Thanks to an “unfunded mandate passed into law in 1986,” hospitals that participate in the Medicare program must “screen and treat anyone with an emergency medical condition” (Stephens & Ledlow, 2010). This unfortunately leads to emergency rooms full of people who may have something as simple as a sinus infection which then makes it really difficult for someone with a real emergency that did not require ambulatory transport to be seen in a timely manner. Another unfortunate result of this is that “over 1,100 emergency departments closed over the past decade” (Stephens & Ledlow, 2010).