After more than three years of anticipation, season 3 of the medical series Hippocrates will make its comeback this Monday on Canal+ ! Season 2 was partly written and filmed at the height of the pandemic. Containment had arrived, and Thomas Liltithe series’ creator, donned his doctor’s coat for a few weeks, his initial training before becoming a screenwriter and director.
Remember: in the final minutes of season 2we left the Raymond-Poincaré hospital team at the start of the health crisis, the day after the President of the Republic announced the first lockdown. Season 3 begins with Chloé (Louise Bourgoin), Arben (Karim Leklou), Alyson (Alice Belaïdi), Hugo (Zacharie Chasseriaud) and Olivier Brun (Bouli Lanners) in the aftermath of the pandemic. Why did Thomas Lilti decide to gloss over the Covid-19 health crisis? Here’s how.
“I knew it was going to take me a while to write this new season. When I started writing season 3, the health crisis wasn’t quite behind us, but I had a feeling that when it came out, it would be. Hippocrates has always had this pretention of trying to tell what’s going to happen, to anticipate things a little rather than looking in the rear-view mirror,” explains Thomas Lilti to 20 Minutes.
“Great difficulties in accessing care”
Season 3 begins in summer, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. By decision of the health authorities, many hospital wards have been closed, and those that remain open are overcrowded. “In the summer, with all the beds closed and the wards on half capacity, access to care is extremely difficult. And the first to suffer are, as always, the underprivileged,” comments Thomas Lilti.
While working for SOS Médecins, Alyson finds herself in the apartment of an Eastern mafia gang, where tensions are running high. A man is between life and death, having waited in vain for the ambulance to arrive. As she struggles to save her patient, she is physically abused by those close to her. Following her attack, SOS médecin goes on strike, exacerbating the difficulty of access to care for the population.
The last place to turn for treatment? The emergency department, where Chloé, Arben and Brun try to cope. Patients are pouring in and tensions are palpable. “A societal violence appears in Hippocrates. In the first episode, around Alysson, and in episode 2, when a fight breaks out in the corridors because the director announces that the ER is closed. These are frustrated tantrums,” comments the series creator.
“The caregivers are tired”
This new season doesn’t tackle the health crisis head-on, but looks at the consequences of Covid-19 on the French hospital system. “Season 2 was about the state of the hospital just before the crisis. I found it more interesting to ask what the hospital looks like today? What state are the carers and patients in once the crisis is over?” defends the creator of Hippocrate.
“We’ve been through a tragedy… Caregivers are tired because we’re tired. You’re tired, I’m tired,” says Olivier Brun, the head of the emergency department (Bouli Lanners, always impeccable) to his teams. “Finally, in season 3, Covid is omnipresent, but off-screen, with the traces it has left on the psychology of the caregivers, on their terror of having to treat under these conditions and the fear that it will happen again,” comments the creator ofHippocrate.
“The pandemic has left its mark”
Covid has left a field of ruins: “Even though we applauded and supported the caregivers during this crisis, we realize that the pandemic has left its mark,” says Thomas Lilti.
At the Poincaré hospital, the caregivers quickly realized that the instructions were untenable, and some decided to disobey. “What happens when the institution, the system, the laws that govern us, give us the feeling that they’re preventing us from doing things right? Should we go into resistance? Disobey? Become an outlaw, at the risk of putting ourselves in danger? This is the dilemma facing our heroes,” explains Thomas Lilti.
“The healthcare system is the heritage of all of us”.
So, if the creator has glossed over the health crisis, it’s all the better to tell the story of its deleterious consequences on our healthcare system. “The healthcare system is our common heritage. We hold it dear, and to see it damaged, to see those who work in it suffer, we can’t look at that with a light eye”, concludes Thomas Lilti, who wants to “continue to tell the story of this ever-evolving healthcare system”.