Critique: This is Going to Hurt (TV)

Based on real events, this series follows Adam, a doctor on a maternity ward.

It is one of the most amusing things I have ever seen (it had me giggling so much). It’s what gives this show its wow factor. Yet it’s also one of the heavy hitters.

We see how his job impacts his personal life, particularly with his boyfriend Harry and with his best friend Greg. It’s an unpleasant but necessary reminder that helpers suffer because they’re committed to doing what’s right for others, not what’s right for them.

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

There were many good choices made for this show.

Adam talks to the premature baby throughout the series. This is so moving. Adam could have avoided the baby because he relives his mistake with it over and over again yet Adam takes responsibility and comfort. Adam is worried about both the baby’s life and his own.

This show was set when it was written rather than modernised to now. This was great. Some things, like Harry running out of phone credits, have no parallels to now so plot points would have to be removed completely.

No, it didn’t break the fourth wall. This show was based on a diary and diaries are written after the fact because they are a reflection on events. So Adam talking to the camera is a visual representation of a diary. (Shruti talking to the camera could undermine this but it was only once.)

 

Lots of characters are cruel.

            Adam is incredibly mean to Shruti, a doctor lower in the hierarchy. This show is based on Adam’s real life. Was this just amped up for the drama or was he actually this mean to people? If it’s the latter, baring his flaws would be very brave. (It wouldn’t. of course, absolve him from his bad behaviour.)

            Adam made a mistake which led to a baby being kept in the NICU. Loads of staff from many different departments try to rip Adam a new one, being unbearably cruel to him. He made a mistake when he thought he was helping: he’s already beating himself up enough over it. The doctor Julien is a total dick until, that is, Adam gets a complaint. After that, Julien’s the nicest person in the world.

 

These points aren’t a critical of the show but instead real life.

An inclusivity officer says that they have to call disabled people ‘differently abled’. This is frankly insulting. Everyone is differently abled from each other, abled and disabled people alike, so using the phrase ‘differently abled’ for disabled people just completely negates their existence.

Shruti always complains that the seniors never teach her anything. Then when Al joins the team, Shruti pushes him away until she realises her error. She changes her behaviour so she didn’t become a hypocrite. Shruti’s experience in this regard is very common because doctors have too much to do in the time they have.

Women can put red stickers on their medical folders to show they suffer with domestic abuse. But doctors keep patients’ files. When does someone have the opportunity to handle their files, let alone discreetly put a sticker on it?

 

The humour was almost too much. It really was excellent quality. Erica in particular was perfection.

            My absolute favourite line from the show was pure genius. Adam tells a patient that she’s had a prolapse so he’ll “put something in to keep it in there” and the patient replies, “I haven’t had anything up there since decimalisation.”

Adam refers to the maternity ward as ‘brats and twats’.

Whenever he delivers a baby, he tells them that Adam is a good name. To a racist patient, Adam tells them ‘Adolf’ is a good name. That really cracked me up.

Woman had kinder egg stuck up her vagina and it had of all things a ,wedding ring inside.

“Thank you, God that I don’t believe in.”

Al faints whilst performing a caesarean sector and lands face first in the patient’s open stomach. No wonder Adam calls Al “a complete waste of organs.” (My second favourite line of the show.)

One doctor talks about a stiff upper labia. They are lips after all!

 

Set in a maternity ward, there were always going to be soul-destroying moments, visualisations of events that would usually be unspoken. Dead and stillborn babies are a topic I find very distressing. The advert I saw for this show was in A&E: if the advert had shown a maternity ward, I wouldn’t have watched it. Yet I’m glad I got the wrong impression because the joy that came with the heartache was well worth it.