5B

The documentary takes up a ward at San Francisco General Hospital. The ward is called 5B, on the fifth floor. It was the first in the country designed specifically for patients with AIDS. The time is the heaviest period of the HIV and AIDS crisis. Fear of infection and widespread panic surrounded it. The nurses on the ward put care on a human footing. They looked after the whole wellbeing of their patients. That approach was unusual in the conditions of the day. Nurses from that time speak in the film. Among them are Alison Moed, Cliff Morrison and Mary Magee. Dan Krauss and Paul Haggis’s American documentary of 2018 runs ninety three minutes.