This is the kind of topic most viewers, even the ones more daring, tend to avoid since it's one of those things that can be too close to home wheter because it's a
possible reality that most like to avoid or because they knew or know someone who went by similar experience, or in a more close reality they actually deal with those things
themselves. The topic in question comes to the challenges faced by nurses dealing with ethics questionings in dealing with patients wheter on critical situations or ones
with situations that are complicated to deal with.
This Oscar nominated short documentary follows four cases of the Code Grey, a code designed to patients in situations where nurses struggle to find the exact
autonomy while directing the better or most adequate treatment possible for, either being with critical cases or typical situations where the patient can no longer
respond for themselves. It follows situations from ER's and either nursing homes wheter nurses struggle to find the proper manners to attend patients requests, follow
their own procedures even if it means to make them endure long treatments that might not be all that helpful.
Consider the first case presented where a baby was born with so many issues that it won't be able to hear/talk or move that the nurses need to keep it alive either
by keeping on the adequate temperature and feeding yet the baby keeps on rejecting the food. They understand the new born's condition but what to do? The Hippocratic Oath
says about the preservation of life under all circumstances and they sure try and do but it's also something that keep them under extreme pressure since they need to find
ways to be completely alligned with each other's work and hope nothing goes wrong when everything's up against them. And to whom they're gonna keep it alive since the mother
already put the baby to adoption?
On the nursing home case it was less troubled but still complicated with the old lady wanting to move around places but she's too frail and had broken bones that a
need for restrain is mandatory. She doesn't comply until a common ground established by the nurses come along. I guess most people will identify themselves with this
particular scenario as happening some day when you're old enough, time has caught up with you but you think you can do the usual stuff as before. What if someone needed
to restrain you because of possible risks or death? And to put ourselves in the nurses shoes as a caring worker trying to help is more difficult for ones who don't
understand how such job is difficult because one needs the patience to explain things to the patient without them having a fit - this comes to another patient, this one
violent and with a mental condition of which we only hear the screaming as the the nurses discuss the best ways to deal with her, what's right for them and what's right
and needed for the patient.
The code gray, for what I understood, consists on ethical issues during treatment of patients where the solutions does not come on black and white terms and those
issues need to be addressed and discussed on ethics boards where a treatment plan is adopted based on what everyone has to share, with doctors and nurses. If you never
thought deeply about their caring with patients, the hurt they get in order to make decisions and understanding they can suffer too just as the patients feel pain and
need relief and the family also is in pain and wanting the best for their relatives, this documentary will make you rethink about the work they go through and how the
decisions cannot be simply made just because the patients wants it or the family wants it. One has to consider everything that's at stake and what can help or not on all
parts involved.
I haven't felt this concerned for a movie/documentary with a similar thopic ever since "Extremis", which dealt about the difficult part of letting patients go
when there was nothing more to be done for them and the family decision was the key factor rather than the professionals matter since in that case there were orders to
be followed elsewhere above the nurse (it's between family and doctors). This was a huge blow to the mind and it made me think of several issues, and just hearing the
nurses talking about what they go through, how they want to act in order to help is just sad yet they keep going on the job or some quit because they can't handle
such extremities where little can be done to help people and they must accept it. It's a tough watch but it's a valuable one that can generate a great discussion
between viewers. 10/10.