Yahoo News Care viewers dismayed at portrayal of health care professionals
BBC One's latest Jimmy McGovern drama, Care, has managed to offend several viewers for its portrayal of NHS workers.
The TV film aired yesterday (December 9) and told the story of Jenny Northwood (played by Sheridan Smith), a single mum of two who's forced to look after her widowed mother after she suffers from a horrific stroke. To make things somehow even worse, Jenny's mum (Mary) falls into vascular dementia.
Care is basically a reflection on the UK's current hospital crisis, with beds being in extremely high demand and tough decisions having to be made by professionals. Here, it's Mary who experiences these new procedures and things really go south from there for the whole family.
Jenny has to quit her job at the supermarket, instead becoming a full-time carer for Mary. Jenny and her sister Claire then discover that their mum should qualify for NHS Continuing Healthcare, which would relieve their growing financial stresses, but this fact is withheld by the health authority though, forcing the sisters into a war against the system.
Care might seem like a timely reminder of the issues facing the medical world right now, but its characterisation has come under fire from those on social media.
As a health professional who has cared for people who have had a stroke or suffered with dementia, I am mortified and disgusted with how the health professionals have been portrayed in the @BBCOne programme #Care #NHS staff are so much more than what this show is conveying
- Emily (Tig) Bridge (@tig_bridgeRD) December 9, 2018
One viewer wrote: "As a health professional who has cared for people who have had a stroke or suffered with dementia, I am mortified and disgusted with how the health professionals have been portrayed in the @BBCOne programme #Care #NHS staff are so much more than what this show is conveying."
Watching #Care and increasingly frustrated at the BBC’s stereotyping. Still in her hospital gown, patronising and uncaring staff, kitchen ‘tests’. This is not the health care I and anyone I know provides. Really hoping this is dramatisation rather than the writers’ reality.
- Jenny Ruddlesdin (@jruddlesdin) December 9, 2018
#care
As a qualified OT for 30+ years I am extremely offended by the representation of OT in the first half an hour of this program. I have never witnessed an OT talk so patronisingly to a patient or their relatives. Fantastic acting by Alison Steadman and Sheridan Smith.- Di Brown (@Di_Brown_) December 9, 2018
Watching @BBCOne #Care and utterly dismayed at how Occupational Therapists are being portrayed. That poor lady would never been taken for an assessment like that considering how she was presenting on the ward. Its horrible to watch how the health professionals are so cold!
- Ciara O'Neill (@CiaraIrishOT) December 9, 2018
Was this a fair representation of the hard workers caught up in a cash-strapped system?
Care is available now on BBC iPlayer.
Want up-to-the-minute entertainment news and features? Just hit 'Like' on our Digital Spy Facebook page and 'Follow' on our @digitalspy Instagram and Twitter account.
('You Might Also Like',)
