A funny thing happened on the way to making a documentary about racial disparities in health care featuring a hand-picked group of opinionated New Haveners: They didn’t want to talk about it. At least not until filmmaker Crystal Emery stopped the cameras and gave them all a pep talk.
The filming for Emery’s project — with a working title of “Racial Disparities in Health Care: The Audacity of Hope” (not to be confused with presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s health care platform) — commenced Thursday evening at Congregation Mishkan Israel in Hamden. (Click here for an earlier story on the project.)
Emery (pictured) brought dozens of people together, people with whom she’d had innumerable conversations on the topic. People “who wouldn’t shut up” she said— until they were sitting in front of the cameras.
Then it was like pulling teeth for moderators Juan Figueroa and Pat Baker (of the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut and the Connecticut Health Foundation, respectively, the film’s two main funders) to get anyone to share their true feelings on the topic.
Finally Emery felt compelled to leave the control room and go into the studio.
“I won’t have a documentary if I don’t capture your voice,” she told them. Click here to listen to her humorous but effective cajoling.
Effective because after that people opened up.
To Baker’s question, for instance: “Why is it so difficult to recognize and respond to the racism that exists within our health care system?”
New Haven school principal Carolyn Kinder (shown entering the studio with a bevy of other women in red) jumped right in, saying, “because there’s only so much resources available. There’s an attitude of health care providers that minorities are lazy, they don’t take care of themselves, so why should we spend money on resources to serve them when they’re not doing the basic things for themselves.”
Baker’s next question: “What role do you think physicians play in this issue of health care disparities?”
A physician answered, “Prejudice is a disease, and there is no training course for people who are infected with prejudice, or pre-conceived notions about patients. I think that’s something medical societies need to deal with.”
“Let’s stipulate for the moment,” Juan Figueroa said, “that racism is institutionalized in our health care system as well as in some of our other institutions. If that’s the case, how can legislation impact people’s behavior? Is that part of the solution?”
One woman said no, because you can’t legislate feelings. Figueroa responded, “Laws have been used to legislate certain values.” State Sen. Toni Harp chimed in: “The way we deal with institutionalized racism is through our laws. I believe there are changes in laws that will make a difference and basically bring us closer together.” Click here for some specifics.
One group that was well represented was the New Haven chapter of the Black Nurses Association. President Paulette Mebane (pictured) had high hopes for the educational impact of the documentary. “I believe it will raise awareness for individuals who are faced with these disparities in America, and to know that the system sometimes poses disparities and it’s not always related to the individual’s disease process or what it is they might be seeking in terms of medical care, but the way the bureaucracy is established.”
Note: Both the Universal Health Care Foundation and the Connecticut Health Foundation have awarded grants to the Online Journalism Project, which publishes the New Haven Independent.
