BREATHTAKING - itv 9pm -mon 19 - wed 21 - TV PACE NO SPOILERS

[Blondeshavemorefun]

This looks really good and meant to be very powerful

3 parts on this week mon Tue and wed

After the huge impact of Mr Bates Vs The Post Office, another social and political reckoning could be coming with the searing new three-part drama (https://www.stylist.co.uk/tag/drama) Breathtaking.

Based on palliative care doctor and writer Rachel Clarke’s personal memoir about the Covid-19 crisis, the hard-hitting series is an account of the life of a frontline NHS doctor through the pandemic.

“There is so much misinformation and rewriting of history around what really happened inside our hospitals during the pandemic,” says Clarke.

“The truth is, NHS staff gave everything they had in impossible conditions that sometimes cost them their lives.

It is an honour to try and depict the courage and decency of my NHS colleagues on screen, and I’m so grateful to ITV and HTM Television for giving me the
chance to show the public the truth.”

The three-part series is based on Rachel Clarke’s personal memoir, where she wrote about her own experience of working during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Set in a fictional big-city hospital, the drama narrates how frontline medical staff endured fear and frustration as they desperately tried to save the lives of coronavirus patients,” reads the show’s synopsis.

It recounts the devastating impact of the pandemic through the eyes of acute medicine consultant Dr Abbey Henderson (Froggatt).

Who is in the cast of Breathtaking?
• Joanne Froggatt as Dr. Abbey Henderson.
• George Georgiou as Hue.
• Lucy Montgomery as Clare Boxall.
• Georgia Goodman as Divina Aquino.
• Jodie McNee as Jules Jarmen.
• Mark Dexter as Mike.
• Bhav Joshi as Dr. Ant Vyas.
• Henry Meredith as Tommy.

Some people have called him Archie like Emma. Maybe that’s what he preferred though, to be addressed formally

wow
when mr Andrews reached out his hand....

Yeah Emma called him archie.

oh right my dad certainly didn't have one recently.

yes she did call him Archie but she was the only one.

Thanks. I went back to work when my DS2 was 8w old because of COVID.
I am absolutely fucking FURIOUS with the tories, I hate them, I hate them!!
How can anyone vote for them after this total shit show? Plus the post office thing?
Honestly, I totally despair!

Brings it all flooding back, trying not to feel scared for our DS who was working in ICU and IMU as a ‘junior’ trainee anaesthetist at the time. He would sometimes phone us on the way home after a shift to offload a bit. It was hard trying to give him emotional support whilst also feeling so scared for his safety. The things he experienced will never leave him. He’s said he won’t be able to watch the series
On average before Covid he would maybe experience a patient’s death every 6 weeks or so, during the worst of the pandemic he would bear witness to 6 or 8 deaths a shift - the worst thing for staff was during the first wave how little they could do to support or treat patients other than minimise pain and comfort them if they were conscious. But they never lost sight of their humanity caring for each patient and their families (by phone) as individuals. On more than one occasion his hospital was only hours away from running out of oxygen, and they were briefed on how to prioritise patients if that should happen. Unimaginable.

In the early days there was no knowledge or evidence of what treatments or therapies would be of real benefit, as he said you don’t expect to work in modern western medicine in a top hospital and not know or have the skills or equipment to help patients. It was indeed like a war zone. At one stage he was looking after patients on ventilators in quickly converted operating theatres, 2 in each theatre. The ventilators were not designed to run continuously and would often not work properly or even fail leaving the staff having to manually ventilate intubated patients whilst he rushed around trying to repair the ventilator.

Those idiots who peddle conspiracy theories about empty hospitals and tik-toking nurses should hang their heads in shame. Members of the government should face criminal proceedings for the decisions and lies they made in the period leading up to the pandemic and during. I will never forgive Hancock of Johnson.

I think that ,s normal.in intensive care ?
My son wss intensive care last year for three weeks he also had a board next to is bedside saying what was important to him
I watched all three episodes today so won't spoil it but when they put Davina on life support made me cry when my son was intensive care they were. Very close to ventilating him it wasn't due to Covid and thankfully he's recovered but it wss do frightening.

It might be the patients preference!?
I used to be a a nurse who worked in Dementia care so obviously nothing like Covid times but I always referred to the patients in their preferred terms be that Mr whatever their surname or hilda who has always been known as Anne etc .

I guess so. Just very surprising as I speak to a fair few older people through work and all still say to call them by their first name.

I think in some care settings it’s preferable to call someone their name with a title, particularly an older gentleman in order to ensure you’re allowing them to retain a level of personal dignity.

My god that is absolutely horrific!! I am so, so sorry you went through that! Just shocking. You honestly deserve a medal! Let's hope this drama triggers a public outcry for doctors to be given a decent pay rise!

I watched episode 2 last night and it made me properly sob. It's so easy to forget how awful it was back then and now Sunak and his henchmen are trying to make them villains again.
I still remember Hancock pretending to cry on TV and practically giggling. I can't believe no-one called him out on that at the time. If he hadn't been having an affair the scumbag would probably still be in post.
And like the PO scandal, no accountability at all.
The clapping just seems painfully embarrassing now.

Oh go boil your head. Away with your nastiness. Even NHS staff get the odd 30 minute break you know, and quite a lot of them were dying without loved ones also.

Very sobering.

How do you use your voice wrongly?
And the clip of incorrectly applying mask was probably part of the scene where she tried PPE on and noted that it did not fit correctly as it was made for a man (which pretty much most hospital gear is based on)

@Verbena17 that video that you quoted in your unedited post, I think by looking at the surroundings and the uniforms most of those seem to be in America, and also you can surely see it's just seconds of footage complied together? A bit of light relief in the horror? How fucking dare you judge nursing and drs staff, who are all trying their very best.
You can quite frankly take a high jump unless you've double wrapped 15-20 dead bodies in a 12 hour shift(yes they were double wrapped at the beginning where I worked due to infection control risk) trying so desperately to give people dignity and personalised deaths, singing to them, talking to them about their families and all the while thinking in your brain "how many more today?" worn full PPE for all of it, only breathing in "fresh" air when you're changing it, sitting with patients while they die as they're loved ones are pressing their hands against the window saying goodbye. Tried to soothe your mask burn with everything from sudacrem to after sun, wincing everytime you had to put on another. Worrying everyday you might take this condition home to your family.
Do you know anything of that? NO.
YOURE A GRADE A KNOB.

I wasn't decided whether to watch this but am pleased I did , although it was harrowing . I've always held respect for people who work in hospitals but this was above and beyond . It's the little things ,like staying with a dying patient and the Dr who played the guitar for Mr Williams , they all mean so , so much . My admiration is beyond speech .

@Verbena17 That old chestnut. What every medics was making videos? All the time? Everywhere? Grow up.

As for making TikTok videos - some wards and even hospitals doing elective surgery were closed to admissions at first so staff had nothing much to do - actually when they were asked to come and help us some refused!

I meant using their voices to increase dramatic tension in situations where in reality I think they would have been calm. But in context not yet a clip it was better.

As for mask wearing, according to my Trust policy they were all wearing their FFP3s wrongly throughout (both straps at the crown of the head) plus nobody was doing the full on doffing we were taught with gloves. But it was so consistent that I wonder if technique varied - they must have had advisers. Probably the full doffing and donning would have been much too boring to show, though I think actually the speed plus care we all achieved would have shown how familiar it got, rather than dramatically, wearily doing it.

I'm wondering what tonight e3 will show

We've seen the extreme distress and deaths in e1 plus panic and confusion of what was happening in lockdown 1

How long did abbey/Joanna f stay away from her family and went night after night to single room

Then went to help out. Eat out

Then another lockdown

Then the Xmas bubble which was then taken away - yet I know of many people who still saw their families

I did think at the time allowing people to see each other for Xmas would cause problems

I got my first vaccine in feb 2021 so 11mths after the 23/3/2020 due to my job

Many friends had it much later

Well, if a little bit of fun making TikTok videos helped them get through their day, then I, who was safe working from home and not facing the horrors they were, am not going to deny them that. They didn't work 24/7, although it must have felt like it, and the videos were probably done at the start or end of a harrowing shift.

Wasn't there a general shortage.

I last saw my daughter and her partner on February 2020 in London, despite concerns even then about a pandemic. I argued that it could be the last time I would get to see her for quite some time.

The next time I saw her physically was in August 2021. That hug we gave one another is a hug I will never forget. Ever.