"Waiting Room": Another Documentary of Our Nation's Healthcare System

 Waiting Room is a documentary, made by Peter Nicks, being released this Friday in the San Francisco/Bay Area.  All of this documentary was based off of Nicks's wife's career at Oakland Hospital.  With the stories she always told him, and the crippling health care system of our nation, Nicks was motivated to put this on the screen.  He started off on his own, and would speak to patients in the Emergency Room waiting rooms, for endless hours on end, while also trying to fund his documentary.  The article is almost like a thorough interview as well, Nicks discusses the issues with uninsured patients, and all the perspectives he wanted and needed. Nicks believes the system has been lost, and that the purpose of it has been destroyed.  He really appreciates the patients and the staff for what they do.  

This is a very controversial and politically sensitive debate in America for the past couple years.  Being in the waiting room is the most realistic point of the entire situation.  Mainly this caught my attention because I myself am in the waiting room for the emergency a lot, since I don't have a regular doctor.  I've spent my fair share of many hours just waiting.  At some point in my life, I was also uninsured, so not only was the wait impossible, but the expenses as well.  It's good to see that somebody wants to really show the world what's going on in the places where it matter's most.  Not government official buildings or meetings, but down to the core of a hospital itself.

This can impact me as a filmmaker and a consumer.  As a consumer, I love watching documentaries like these, I like to know what's going on in our country and how people would reveal the truth of our nation.  It's something I'm really interested in, and wish I was lucky enough to be in the Bay Area to see it myself.  As a filmmaker, this makes me want to make something that people want to know and see.  If this doesn't concern you, then you aren't really concerned about the troubles of our nation right now.  It's important to know what your viewers want to see, when it comes to documentaries such as this one.

Sometimes when I watch these documentaries, they can be so controversial.  They're so emotionally and politically arousing, the only question I could possibly ask is that if it's really safe to put out something sensitive like a topic like this?


read more here