White Silence

Nurse Clara returns to her position on the intensive care ward after maternity leave. An old friend and a couple colleagues still work at the hospital, easing her transition a little. Yet, other than those few small graces, much has intensified about the expected hospital workload and the procedures and pressures. Clara takes all these matters in stride at first, adapts and is just glad to be back at work. But she quickly senses something very wrong is happening right under the noses of the attending hospital staff.
An eerie pattern emerges. Clara notices an unusual number of heart failures, their subsequent dramatic resuscitations and all too often the deaths of patients undergoing normal recoveries. Patients who were fine only days or hours before. After overcoming the shock of so many odd deaths in such a short amount of time, the fog clears and she sees the morbid link. All the patients are under the care of an extroverted, confident and popular young intensive care nurse, Rico, who seems to feed off of the thrilling highs of bringing people back from the brink of death.
When Clara’s careful behind-the-scenes questioning about the work of her life-saving, esteemed male colleague, she begins to hit walls of silence and even outrage. Can a simple female nurse judge this situation at all? More so, her friends and colleagues are afraid of being pegged as whistle-blowers. So she’s told in no uncertain terms to trust the system and look the other way for her own good. In addition, the profit- and reputation-driven hospital administration also implies Clara should back off or face consequences.
At great risk to a job she adores and needs to support her family, Clara decides to take her heartfelt beliefs underground and starts digging into Rico’s past employment, past colleagues, his administration of unauthorized medicines and adrenaline-junkie behavior. Clara’s tenacity pays off in the end. After more than a decade and with help from brave statements by workers at other hospitals Rico had grifted through, Clara prevails. She remains an early prototype and inspiration to all heroes who call out wrong doing by name.