Inside the COVID unit at Jackson South Medical Center
Documentaries look at front-line workers
The COVID-19 pandemic struck the Sunshine State hard in the spring of 2020. As an onslaught of patients with the new and deadly disease threatened to overwhelm South Florida’s medical system, doctors and nurses inside one small community hospital in Miami-Dade County did something extraordinary.
They started recording. The pain. The determination. The growing realization that this was unlike anything they had ever encountered.
“Inside the COVID Unit: Battling the Coronavirus Pandemic in Miami,” a five-part documentary series published by the Miami Herald and McClatchy, tells the stories of front-line workers, their patients and the families of both. The documentary, directed by Miami Herald/ McClatchy visual journalist Reshma Kirpalani, reveals the sacrifices made and the cost in lives, first in the thousands and then in the hundreds of thousands nationwide, as the pandemic took aim at Florida.
With Miami emerging as a national hot spot for infection last spring, doctors and nurses began documenting what happened beyond the swinging doors of the COVID unit at Jackson South Medical Center, part of Miami-Dade County’s Jackson Health System. With the hospital’s permission, they kept recording from April through October, capturing the everyday courage of medical workers who put themselves and their families at risk to fight an unseen enemy. Outside the hospital, Kirpalani spent months interviewing the families of workers and patients to understand the deep impacts on their lives, once filming inside the hospital as well.
The series, being published on the Miami Herald’s website one episode a week for five weeks, goes deep into the lives of one doctor, one nurse and the wife of a patient. It chronicles the tough decisions, the glimmers of hope and the personal battles they faced, even as outside the hospital, many Floridians refused to wear masks to prevent coronavirus transmission. “Inside the COVID Unit” gives viewers unprecedented access into the lives a handful of South Floridians at the heart of the fight against a killer virus.
To watch the documentary, click on: www.miamiherald.com/icu