Previous generations had TV shows like General Hospital, ER, and Grey’s Anatomy. These were mindless medical dramas revolving around romantic relationships. Our generation has The Pitt, where the central theme is the failure of the US healthcare system.
The Covid-19 pandemic exposed the extent of the rot in healthcare, and the struggle that healthcare workers endured to keep the system running. More than 3,500 healthcare workers died from Covid during the first year of the pandemic, and many more were traumatized by the experience.
The show’s characters constantly struggle with that trauma and ongoing stress as they power through grueling 15-hour shifts. Each episode represents one hour of their shift, so that an entire season equals one workday. The chaotic whirlwind the workers face by the minute evoke a sense of sympathy and class solidarity in the viewer.
Yet medical emergencies sometimes seem calm in comparison to the frustration of dealing with hospital executives. Lead character Dr. Robby (played by Noah Wyle, who also featured in ER), confidently jumps into action in life-or-death scenarios—but hides from the hospital business executives.
In one scene, the hospital administrator confronts Robby over poor “patient satisfaction” scores. Robby replies, “If you want people to be happier, don’t make ’em wait for 12 hours … You just don’t want to hire the staff you need to care for them … If you paid [nurses] a living wage, they’d be lining up to work here … Here’s a dirty little secret. The hospital saves money keeping patients down in ‘the Pitt.’”
The show’s title is a play on words that likens the Pittsburgh hospital’s Emergency Room to a pit where the sick and injured are dumped, left to wait for hours on end in an overworked, under-resourced department. The administrator complains that calling it “the pit” is bad for the hospital’s image. Robby retorts, “You know what’s incompatible with the institution’s image? Me speaking to the media about people who [die] in our waiting rooms and people who get shitty care in our hallways waiting for an ICU bed for days.” After that, the administrator simply threatens to fire him.
The reality of medical debt and lack of insurance feature frequently in The Pitt plotlines. One episode features a father who goes into diabetic ketoacidosis at one of his two jobs. When he tries to leave the hospital because of the potential $60,000 bill, a doctor pleads with him to complete his lifesaving treatment. His reply: he can’t afford to add tens of thousands more dollars to the $100,000 he already owes in medical debt.
The show accurately depicts the role of emergency healthcare workers as the patches over the holes of capitalism. Due to dilapidated social services in the US, emergency rooms have to mop up the mess left from lack of preventative care, as well as malnutrition, abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of elder care, homelessness, police brutality, and more.
For an entertainment product, The Pitt faithfully reflects the decay of US capitalism. It is therefore not surprising that it struck a chord with the public, racking up tens of millions of viewers. The show is a product made from—and for—the lingering class anger with the US healthcare system in the era of Luigi Mangione.