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The Waiting Room Photos
Movie Info
Filmmaker Peter Nicks chronicles events at a public hospital's emergency room, where the overworked staff and many uninsured patients must cope with disease, injury, bureaucracy and hard choices.
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Genre: Documentary
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Original Language: English
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Director: Peter Nicks
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Producer: Peter Nicks, Linda Davis, William B. Hirsch
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Release Date (Theaters): limited
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Release Date (Streaming):
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Box Office (Gross USA): $244.1K
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Runtime:
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Distributor: International Film Circuit [us]
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Production Co: ITVS (Independent Television S
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News & Interviews for The Waiting Room
Critic Reviews for The Waiting Room
Audience Reviews for The Waiting Room
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This is a very good piece of evidence, as to why the health care system in this country has to be reformed. People without insurance can only be seen in the emergency room, and looking at urban areas, that means hundreds of people waiting hours, days, even weeks for medical care. In one instance of the film, a man with a bullet wound is left to sit for an entire day, going numb throughout his body. A young girl is rushed through, an older man tries to get help when there's no one able to, and a homeless man takes attention away from less endemic cases as he's rushed through the ER. It's a very stressful environment that's portrayed, and the implications of not having insurance are strongly shown. The people in the documentary are also quite interesting, and at times it feels more like a film than a realistic portrayal of a hospital. There's the sassy nurse, the hopeful and yet defeated doctor, the strange people coming through the ER, trying to get treatment. Not only does this film educate, but entertain, and that's difficult with such a small space and time to work with.
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"The Waiting Room" is an incisive look at the sorrowful state of the modern healthcare system in the United States, as seen through the microcosm of a 24-hour period of the emergency room in Highland Hospital in Oakland, California. Through the eyes of patients, nurses, doctors and social workers, we see how the system functions and does not work, and in response how the staff members seek to work the system to the best of their patients' advantage and health. As one doctor explains, the emergency room is usually the only chance for these uninsured people to see a doctor which is why these cases are not usually those we have been conditioned to associate with an emergency but are still important nonetheless. Otherwise, the patients would be left to their own devices and the internet. My only criticism here is we never get a clear specific sense as to how long these people have to wait to see a doctor.
walter m Super Reviewer
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