- Welcome to Independent Lens .
I'm Pete Schwaba, host of Wisconsin Public Television's
Director's Cut.
Healthcare:
A vital part of everyone's life and currently
one of the biggest and most complex issues in our country.
Tonight, we drill down for a look specifically
at the healthcare struggles Rural America faces,
first on Independent Lens with the documentary, The Providers,
followed by a special Wisconsin Public Television presentation,
Medicine on Main Street,
which focuses on similar issues right here in Wisconsin.
In the documentary The Providers,
we meet three healthcare workers
on the front lines in northern New Mexico
as they deal with a physician shortage,
socioeconomically-challenged patients,
and an opioid crisis.
The three subjects provide their services
at a group of safety net clinics called El Centro ,
where they offer care to anyone who walks through the door,
whether they can pay or not.
Were it not for these providers,
their marginalized patients
would be completely without healthcare.
Co-Directors,
San Fransisco-based Laura Green
and Brooklyn-based Anna Moot-Levin
are both children of healthcare providers
and share the belief that all Americans,
regardless of geography,
deserve quality healthcare.
It's their passion for this topic
that led these two self-proclaimed big city girls
to roll their cameras
in a more sparsely populated section of America.
Medicine on Main Street looks at the challenges we face
here in small-town Wisconsin, where it has been a struggle
to not only recruit healthcare workers, but to retain them.
Medicine on Main Street was produced in-house
at Wisconsin Public Television
and was co-produced
by the University of Wisconsin- Madison.
The program shows how
the University is addressing this need in our state
by offering programs like
the Wisconsin Academy for Rural Medicine,
which admits and educates students that are committed
to bringing quality healthcare
to rural communities.
In similar fashion to The Providers,
Medicine on Main Street weaves its narrative
through the eyes of dedicated healthcare workers:
a doctor in Black River Falls,
a nurse practitioner in Lancaster,
and two pharmacists,
one in Hayward and one in Rice Lake.
Tonight on WPT, we're all about rural healthcare.
There's no deductible and no waiting.
The Providers starts now
on Wisconsin Public Television,
your home for independent film.