Near Death

The Intensive Care Unit at a Boston Hospital

NEAR DEATH is a film about the Medical Intensive Care Unit at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital. The film is concerned with how people face death. More specifically the film presents the complex interrelationships among patients, families, doctors, nurses, hospital staff and religious advisors as they confront the personal, ethical, medical, psychological, religious and legal issues involved in making decisions about whether or not to give life-sustaining treatment to dying patients.

"This documentary is, quite simply, the most powerful dose of medical reality ever administered by the tube." - Harry F. Waters, Newsweek

"[NEAR DEATH carries] its audience from an initially raw emotional response to a calmer consideration of the difficult issues raised here, and finally on to some sort of resolution." - Janet Maslin, The New York Times