Five Days at Memorial on Apple TV
The Retelling Of Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital
Five Days at Memorial
Published in 2013, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital by American journalist Sheri Fink. The book investigates the struggle of staff and patients who survived being trapped in New Orleans' Memorial Medical Center during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Lacking critical resources, the doctors make a drastic decision that will cause many patients to die via euthanasia. Five Days at Memorial is written in a straightforward journalistic style that is densely detailed with eyewitness testimony. The book provides extensive background on many patients, their family members, hospital staffers, public officials, and others significant to the story.
Sheri Fink's book has been adapted for TV. What series co-creators/writers/directors, John Ridley and Carlton Cuse, manage to explore a tragedy and zero in on how exactly a disaster can escalate out of control, even if all the individual steps seem manageable.
The creative team captured the conditions of the hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, effectively recreating the look and the feel of new Orleans' Memorial Medical Center over those days in September 2005,
Beyond the visceral terror of doctors and patients seeing floodwaters rise outside their window, the program highlights the doctors and caregivers Dr. Anna Pou, Dr. Horace Baltz, Dr. Bryant King, and nurse Karen Wynn as outside conditions threaten the efficacy of their jobs.
They did an excellent job of showing how misinformation caused chaos caused by overheard bits of radio and TV broadcasts and the game of "telephone" gone wrong. As Messages get distorted, rumors metastasize, and communication degrades, no one knows if help is coming or not.
This is a story of a hospital and a healthcare system unprepared to face the challenges of a disaster. However, the story that John Ridley and Carlton Cuse told is that of resilience. We are brought into the lives of those making decisions and giving direction in the hospital. Five Days at Memorial shows the hospital slowly losing its resources and being effectively cut off from the outside world. The writers walked us through the leaders' decisions and painted a picture of desperation and helplessness.
"Five Days at Memorial" reexamines Fink's findings in her book. This series explores what constitutes heroism, what patient care is, and how people work or don't work together in a crisis.
In addition, the writers walk the viewers to a conclusion about the nature of accountability. Like Fink's book, the TV drama leaves us with more questions than answers.
The story of Memorial Hospital did not end when the evacuations were completed. While Five Days at Memorial shows that doctors at Memorial gave compassionate care under difficult conditions, they also explore the ethical choices raised by the challenging logistics for the evacuation on the fifth day at Memorial.
We need to remember that 45 people died under the care of the medical staff at Memorial, and the evidence points to one doctor who helped put them to sleep, Dr. Pou. We can argue if it was out of convenience or compassion, but at the end of the day, 45 people lost their lives. The question is, was justice ever served?