It’s the middle of the night. Hundreds of people have traveled for days to wait in line for basic medical treatment from a Remote Area Medical clinic (RAM). Many huddle in pop-up tents and some sleep on the ground. Some have never been to the dentist. Others are in desperate need of glasses. Most are poor and have no medical coverage or easy access to doctors.
This is not Africa, Guatemala or a remote part of the Amazon.
This is Bristol, Tennessee.
There are 44 million Americans who do not have medical coverage, leaving many of them to rely on pop-up clinics like RAM for their basic medical needs. RAM was founded by Stan Brock thirty years ago to help provide medical care to remote parts of the world. Yet today, RAM focuses 60% of its efforts towards helping people in the United States.
“We cut back on places like Guatemala, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Africa…simply because we’re overwhelmed with the need here. Welcome to America.” says Brock in the documentary feature Remote Area Medical which has its international premiere tomorrow at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.
The powerful documentary tells the story of a three-day clinic in Bristol, which was held a mere 115 miles from RAM headquarters. Volunteer doctors, nurses and support workers joined forces to deliver basic health care to hundreds who otherwise would have none. It’s a very eye-opening and thought-provoking film, especially for my fellow Canadians who enjoy universal health care.
Remote Area Medical is directed by Jeff Reichert and Farihah Zaman who were inspired to make the documentary after volunteering at a RAM clinic in Kentucky. Their goal with the film is to get behind the statistics on the news and to show the human cost of the healthcare debate.
I had a chance to ask Farihah Zaman about the film.
As a Canadian, access to universal health care is something I almost take for granted. So it was very eye-opening and sad to see what some of our US neighbours are going through to obtain basic medical care. What is the main message you would like people to take away from your film?
“First of all, we hope that people start to understand the deeper ramifications of living without care for years, sometimes decades on end, many of which came as a surprise to Jeff and I when we first volunteered at a Remote Area Medical clinic years ago. It goes far beyond physical pain, it can affect your ability to get job, to take care of your family, to feel good about yourself – health is life!
On an even more basic level, however, we’d like people to simply acknowledge the depth of need, to talk about health care differently as a result of seeing this film. Health care is a right, not a privilege.”
Why did you think the story about RAM was an important story to tell at this time?
“Sometimes we are asked if the people represented in the film will be fine now that Obamacare has passed. While Obamacare is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t cover vision, it doesn’t cover dental, and it doesn’t benefit the many US citizens who have no idea how to access the system.
So this really is an incredibly important time to keep the conversation about the failings of American health care alive, rather than grow complacent in the face of a small step forward.
Also as countries in Europe like Spain and the UK start to consider moving to a privatized or partially privatized system with the US health care system as a model, it is important to us to share the the consequences of our system.”
Making this movie was a real communal experience where you enlisted your friends and family to help film it. Tell me about that.
“Many documentaries, particularly those with the kind of budgetary restraints that we had with Remote Area Medical, are made with a small crew of three – director, cinematographer, and sound recordist – over a long period of time.
In our case, however, we were filming an event with thousands of people over a very short period of time, so the size of our crew had to increase in order to allow us to capture both the breadth and depth. We had a crew of about twenty people, many of whom were filmmakers we know and have worked with before, and some of whom are family. Jeff and I got married shortly before shooting, which added to the feeling that this was a labor of love.”
What I found interesting was that despite being desperate for medical treatment and waiting for days in cold weather, people were very peaceful and patient as they waited their turn. No one turned on each other. What (if any) moments or situations did you find surprising during filming?
“More than the fact that people remained calm in the face of such frustrating conditions and, frankly, the injustice that led to them, we were surprised that, for the most part, when people did grow impatient they were generally far more reasonable and articulate about it than we ever imagined.
We were also surprised by the relationship between the patients and the local volunteers, who would frequently recognize each other as friends or neighbors. The border between patient and clinic was far more porous than we anticipated.”
Your film doesn’t focus on the solutions but on the people and the volunteers who help them. Why did you decide to frame the story that way?
“This is a question we’ve been hearing more of in preparation for our Toronto screening, and I think it’s because people who have grown up in a country with the benefit of universal health care tend to understand that to be without it is simply unacceptable.
Jeff and I chose to focus on the most basic workings of the clinic and its patients not only in order to focus on and honor a community of people who often feel overlooked by the rest of society, but because when it comes to American attitudes we should start at square one. We need people and in particular politicians to change their thinking from “How can we cover more people?“to “How can we possibly allow people to live like this?“
Without a public that believes health care is a human rights rather than a political issue, such a revolution of thought would be impossible.”
Remote Area Medical screens on:
Sunday, April 28th at 9:30 (Bloor Cinema)
Tuesday, April 30th at 11:00 am (Isabel Bader Theatre)
Saturday, May 4th at 4:00 pm (Scotiabank Theatre Toronto 3)
For tickets, please visit the Hot Docs Festival online box office.
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