You have had surgery, you have just come out of your anesthesia, and then Rachel Hazes is standing next to your bed. No, it’s not a hallucination, this is the reality of Dutch celebrities in the hospital (Wednesday, SBS6). Well-known Dutch people do an internship in a hospital for a while. Dutch celebrities in the hospital follows a well-known reality concept: the gods of entertainment descend into the human valley and have to experience first-hand how hard ordinary work is. In this case, they initially have an aversion to sick bodies and flowing bodily fluids. Later they see how noble and beautiful the work in care is.
This second season was edited a lot faster than the first, quickly passing the stage of revulsion, uncertainty and giggling doll practice. Only comedian Philippe Geubels is still a bit hesitant about washing people, but he also soon finds his niche. Presenter Natasja Froger is in any case strong in compassion. And MP Caroline van der Plas (BBB) firmly closes a heavily bleeding wound as if she had never done anything else.
It was another nice evening of medical TV; from the invention of the Covid vaccines to the vibrator that shot into the rectum of a young woman named Brittany. The latter happened in Stuck (TLC), a reality show devoted to objects and tissues trapped in the human body. Nice dirty TV (think dr. Pimple Popper) in which the camera looks around the ear canals, nasal passages and anus, and then zooms in on the filth that the doctors fish out. Stuck includes an insect trapped in an ear and a stiletto heel in a woman’s eye socket. But the most fun are of course the rectally inserted objects. In the first episode it’s the dildo that slipped out of Brittany’s left hand, but the doctors also mention beer bottles, a doll’s arm, Christmas decorations.
Zooming medicine men
The American documentary How to Survive a Pandemic (NPO2) shows in a roaring style how three vaccines against Covid-19 were developed in a record time of eleven months. Flashing images of labs and production lines alternate with zooming medicine men. For example, you can see the FDA drug agency’s vaccination boss meeting in his basement at home, with a large teddy bear in the background and four cans of oatmeal under his laptop. It is a moving moment when the first vaccine is approved and the trucks drive out of the warehouses. Triumph of medical science.
But then we’re halfway through the documentary. The tone changes. Once the vaccines are developed, suspicion, greed and selfishness take over. Distribution is broken and rich countries refuse to share their vaccines with other countries. During the film you see the number of covid deaths rise to 5 million on a counter. One million of those, according to the film, could have been prevented if the vaccines had been distributed fairly.
The most penetrating part shows Greek Orthodox priest Paul Abernathy, who with a team of volunteers tackle the pandemic in a poor black neighborhood of Pittsburgh. The black population is hit hardest. When the vaccine is there, many in the area refuse to take it. The same authorities that left them to their own devices, the priest explains, are now coming to tell them to get vaccinated. That doesn’t matter.
The emphasis on scientists, policy makers and pharmaceuticals makes the first half of the film a bit slippery and impersonal. In the parts with the Orthodox priest, the fight against corona takes on a human face, and you see that the pandemic has deepened many existing problems, such as poverty, inequality and racism.
This column will be written by various authors until April 25.