Emergency!: A Critical Situation

Produced by the respected National Film Board of Canada, this candid look inside suburban Montreal's Pierre Boucher Hospital features an attention grabber of an opening, as a group of male and female nurses perform a musical rap (in French) describing the trials and tribulations of emergency room nursing. As the nurses bemoan their long hours, low pay, and a general lack of administrative support and appreciation, the scene quickly switches to the "chaotic reality" of everyday life in the ER, where we watch and listen as the nurses monitor lines and juggle patients, and talk about the paths that led them to nursing. Filmed in French with English subtitles, Emergency! A Critical Situation presents nursing as a calling, a way of life which combines scientific knowledge with gut instinct, and depicts life in the ER as pretty much like a combat zone (after hours, the nurses trade war stories in the pool room). While the nurses blame their overwork and stress on the hospital's excessive devotion to the bottom line, no doctors or administrators are interviewed to provide a more balanced picture. Although viewers looking for answers on how to improve health care won't find much of value here, this semi-cinema vérité look at nursing in a metropolitan hospital is marginally recommended for academic and public library career collections, especially in eastern Canada. Aud: C, P. (S. Rees)