The People's Hospital

A fascinating and beautifully written memoir that reminds us what we have with our NHS - and what we stand to lose. * Christie Watson *
Like a handful of other storied public hospitals in America, Ben Taub manages to do the impossible: to provide world class care for the uninsured and indigent; train generations of physicians; pioneer medical breakthroughs; and do it at a fraction of the cost of fancier places. Nuila’s lyrical and riveting prose lays bare the dysfunctional expensive quagmire that passes for our health care system. His stories of patients and those who care for them captures the miracle that is Ben Taub. The People’s Hospital is a tour de force. * Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone *
Ricardo Nuila details the horrific reality of the American healthcare system from the front lines, and shows us why it doesn’t have to be like that. This is America, as experienced by the many people who fall through the cracks of a corporate system readily willing to disregard them. The People’s Hospital brings the experiences of the poor, undocumented and unlucky to centre stage, while forcing the reader to confront how explicitly money can be the deciding factor when it comes to saving a life. * Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned *
Revelatory and often heartbreaking… Nuila is a skilled writer and shifts elegantly between these narratives and his personal story… His lyricism and empathy defy both typical medical journalism and the reduction of patient care to the management of charts and bills… A compassionate, engrossing story of frustrated hopes and unlikely victories in American health care. * Kirkus, starred review *

Ricardo Nuila is an attending physician and hospitalist at Baylor College of Medicine, where he teaches the practice of internal medicine and medical humanities. As a faculty member in the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, he co-directs the Program of Narrative Medicine. Ricardo also teaches in the Medicine & Society program at the University of Houston Honors College. Ricardo’s essays on medical ethics and health disparities have appeared in the New Yorker.

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