Blood, screams - and rows over the cost of an ambulance (Copy)
Daniel Nelson
A Mexico City car smash. Mangled bodies. Blood. Screams. Traffic rushing past. No hope of a government ambulance – there are less than 45 for a population of nine million, and many aren’t on the road.
Police broadcast a call to the city’s freelance ambulances. The race is on. Like sharks scenting blood, the nearest ambulances dash to the scene in search of business. With flashing lights and raucous loudhailers exhorting other drivers to get out of the way, the nearest two ambulances swerve across lanes, cut in front of cars and buses, themselves dicing with death and injury.
One of the ambulances is driven by a 17-year-old boy. In the back is his younger brother, playing truant from school. Alongside him is his father who, as the vehicle judders to a halt, leaps out, pushes past the police and gets the injured onto stretchers and into the vehicle.
This crash scene could be income for the Ochoa family – and they need the money because many clients say they are too poor to pay, or contest the fee (“I’d love to give you something for caring for my son. But I don’t have the means”). Not being paid sometimes means they lose money on a journey to hospital. It costs money to maintain the ambulance and life-saving equipment, and corrupt police often flag them down to take a cut. The Ochoas have just enough to buy a can of tuna and some crackers for lunch.
Luke Lorentzen’s documentary, Midnight Family, is an adrenaline rush - careering along busy streets, strapping injured people onto stretchers, asking a mother to pay for the journey though her child has died on the way to the hospital – punctuated by glimpses of the Ochoas’ lives as they grab moments of sleep, hose blood off the van, collect the youngest from school, or, in dad’s case, popping pills for a heart condition.
They fill an uncomfortable niche. Their job is essential (“I’d love to take a night off to see what would happen without us. The city would be in a mess without us”) but to the families of the dead and dying they seem like parasites, though the Ochoas barely make ends meet and mostly are sympathetic to their clients, some of whom need tlc as much as a bandage. One young woman who has been head-butted by her boyfriend asks for a hug to help her over the shock and her main worry is how much the ambulance journey will cost. At the same time, the crew must ensure that the woman is able to keep her bag in sight, to avoid any accusation of stealing.
This classic example of observational documentary offers a vivid insight into an unusual way of life. But it’s also a frightening an indictment of commercially driven health care.
