Life-or-death decisions
THE series Five Days At Memorial draws from a Pulitzer Prizewinning account of the harrowing events at a New Orleans hospital when Hurricane Katrina devastated the city in 2005.
As flood waters rose and the power went out, the 2,000 or so people sheltering at Memorial Hospital found themselves trapped – and staff such as Dr Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga) were forced to make life-or-death decisions about patients that would haunt them for years to come.
And unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic suggests that key lessons from the hurricane were forgotten, with many healthcare systems in America just as ill-prepared to handle the pandemic as they were the hurricane.
This was the conclusion drawn by the creators of the show as well as Farmiga and co-star Cherry Jones, who plays nursing director Susan Mulderick, another real person who witnessed Memorial Hospital fall apart.
Farmiga, Jones and creator Carlton Cuse spoke at a virtual press day for the limited series.
The actresses were struck by the similarities between what happened in New Orleans post-hurricane and New York City in the early days of the pandemic, when its hospitals were overwhelmed by Covid-19 cases.
Says Farmiga, 49: “I’m a New Yorker and so is Cherry, and seeing New York in that state of chaos was a glaring indictment of our healthcare system and our government’s disaster preparedness – scrounging for PPE (personal protective equipment) and beds, and overworked healthcare workers having to choose who gets a bed and who doesn’t.”
“This was in the great city of New York and (in) one of the richest and most capable countries in the world,” says the actress, who starred in The Conjuring horror films (2013 to 2021) and was Oscar-nominated for the comedy Up In The Air (2009).
Jones believes “the series will spark a lot of conversation, obviously about the ethics (of the story), but I think we’re hoping it’s also going to wake people up to the fact that our healthcare workers are our front-line soldiers and to the scourge of racial and economic disparity in this country”.
The 65-year-old has won Emmys for her roles in the dramas Succession (2018 to present), The Handmaid’s Tale (2017 to present) and 24 (2001 to 2010).
“It was a huge undertaking, this project, and we were proud to be part of it because it touches on every major issue that’s happening right now in this country and in places around the world,” Jones says.
Cuse, 63, says shortly after he and Oscar-winning co-creator John Ridley (12 Years A Slave, 2013) began work on this series in late 2019, they became acutely aware of the similarities with the Covid-19 pandemic.
“John and I would talk about how history doesn’t always repeat itself, but it rhymes.
“In one form or another, we keep seeing iterations of the same thing happening over and over again,” says Cuse, who won an Emmy as a showrunner on the mystery hit Lost (2004 to 2010).
And he thinks viewers will appreciate this too.
“There are so many similarities that I think everybody who’s gone through the pandemic has had their own powerful experience, and to then look back at what happened in New Orleans in 2005, there’s a lot of resonance.”
The story in the show also raises many of the same practical and ethical issues.
“What happens when you have limited medical resources? In the case of Katrina, it was: Who gets rescued? In the pandemic, it was: Who gets a ventilator? Who gets a vaccine? Who gets a particular type of monoclonal antibody treatment?” says Cuse.
“And for healthcare workers, when they are put in the untenable position of deciding which people get resources, it’s a powerful and horrible ethical dilemma, and we explore some of those things in this story.”
Five Days At Memorial is available on Apple TV+.