Emergency! A Critical Situation
_Emergency! A Critical Situation_ explores the reality of an evening shift in the emergency department of the Centre hospitalier Pierre-Boucher, and reveals the daily lives of the nurses who work hard to provide this essential service to the public. The camera follows the footsteps of these professionals, revealing what they have to put up with to cope with the demands of their work, which is sometimes carried out under intense, almost unbearable stress. From the triage room to the shock room, from the patients lined up in the corridor to the waiting room, they race to put out fires, often with only one priority: maintaining life. It's urgent. Urgent to listen to these women who resist and succeed, despite the difficulties, in keeping human dignity at the heart of their concerns.
| Director | Tahani Rached |
| Actor | L'équipe de Tënk |
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This documentary, made over twenty years ago, could just as well have been filmed yesterday, so unchanging is the reality it portrays — only the setting’s aesthetics, the hairstyles, or certain elements in the film’s treatment betray the passage of time.
It is this historical perspective on something that has not changed that gives the film renewed vitality. Even then, Rached was sounding the alarm: we needed to listen to these women caregivers who, with dedication, support a system on the verge of collapse. Twenty-five years later, a question is imposed on me: were they listened to? The disheartening answer seems to be no.
Consequences? The social body has been suffering for a long time, because the healthcare system is suffering, because the women working in it are suffering, and the population suffers as a result. Relief may not come quickly to those in pain, but the healthcare system itself seems to have been anesthetized for ages. These women who provide care in a world that does not care for them, in my view, embody a form of heroism.
Ultimately, this film reveals a truth: it’s not that we weren’t warned — it’s that we refused to listen. It stands as a testament to the extent of our collective deafness in the face of the muffled cries of those who care for others and carry an entire system on their shoulders.
Sylvie Lapointe
Filmmaker
-
Français
1h23
Language: Français -
English
1h23
Language: English
- Année 1999
- Pays Quebec
- Durée 83
- Producteur ONF / NFB
- Langue French
- Sous-titres English
- Résumé court A powerful portrait of evening-shift nurses in the ER, fighting to save lives in an overwhelmed healthcare system.
- Ordre 3
This documentary, made over twenty years ago, could just as well have been filmed yesterday, so unchanging is the reality it portrays — only the setting’s aesthetics, the hairstyles, or certain elements in the film’s treatment betray the passage of time.
It is this historical perspective on something that has not changed that gives the film renewed vitality. Even then, Rached was sounding the alarm: we needed to listen to these women caregivers who, with dedication, support a system on the verge of collapse. Twenty-five years later, a question is imposed on me: were they listened to? The disheartening answer seems to be no.
Consequences? The social body has been suffering for a long time, because the healthcare system is suffering, because the women working in it are suffering, and the population suffers as a result. Relief may not come quickly to those in pain, but the healthcare system itself seems to have been anesthetized for ages. These women who provide care in a world that does not care for them, in my view, embody a form of heroism.
Ultimately, this film reveals a truth: it’s not that we weren’t warned — it’s that we refused to listen. It stands as a testament to the extent of our collective deafness in the face of the muffled cries of those who care for others and carry an entire system on their shoulders.
Sylvie Lapointe
Filmmaker
-
Français
Duration: 1h23Language: Français1h23 -
English
Duration: 1h23Language: English1h23
- Année 1999
- Pays Quebec
- Durée 83
- Producteur ONF / NFB
- Langue French
- Sous-titres English
- Résumé court A powerful portrait of evening-shift nurses in the ER, fighting to save lives in an overwhelmed healthcare system.
- Ordre 3
