Machines, hoses and handles that have to fit: A TV documentary shows the tough fight for the life of seriously ill Covid 19 patients at the Berlin Charit. S.he will be shown on Monday evening (March 15th, 2021) in Das Erste (10:50 p.m.). There are insights into the everyday work of doctors, intensive care staff and other professional groups involved – and into the fate of the sober corona statistics.
The documentary by director Carl Gierstorfer was filmed over several months on Covid Station 43 of the famous, Europe’s largest university hospital. This station specialized in the treatment of people with severe lung failure even before the pandemic. Now there are people with the most severe Covid-19 disease.
The story in the first: “Fight for every breath”
The documentary shows clearly what the pandemic does to the people who are fighting against it on the front line: Sometimes they appear exhausted, frustrated, pale and tired, constantly confronted with death. “Christmas was terrible,” says a doctor. Many patients have died. An intensive care nurse speaks of the worst time in her working life and a helplessness in the face of the deaths of many young people: “We couldn’t do anything about it. Nothing.”
