5B

Started crying in the first scene and intermittently thereafter. The documentary tugs on your feelings, but is overall uplifting with how compassion triumphed over prejudice in the early days of AIDS care in Ward 5B of San Francisco General Hospital.

I think this is a documentary everyone should see. Many don't know about or have forgotten the ravages of AIDS. This look back at just a few extraordinarily courageous people is inspiring and heartwarming. You may be able to quibble about the clear point of view of the directors, but you can't deny that these inspiring and kind individuals are deserving of recognition.

I'm a nurse who just retired from San Francisco General, and this documentary brought back some of my most vivid memories of the AIDS years. I was waiting to take my nursing boards when AIDS first struck, and I went to work as a hospice nurse for Shanti. Like the nurses in this incredible film, we worked 12-hour shifts taking care of patients who lived - and finally died - together in houses. We knew nothing about how the disease was spread, and I often came home and was afraid that I had contracted it from cleaning up so many bodily fluids. But we kept working and taking care of these very brave, terrified guys because no one else would. Why hasn't this film had more exposure? I didn't even know this film had been made. I know three of the people in this documentary from my involvement as a shop steward for SEIU, and I haven't been able to shake it after seeing it three days ago. I lost my partner and so many friends during those years, and I realized watching this that the scars I have will probably never go away. It was a time of incredible despair, fear and loss. Thank God for this film, thank God for these wonderful people, thank God for San Francisco General Hospital. I've worked as a psychiatric nurse there for 23 years, and I feel so incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to do so.

This film offers a glimpse into the pain and horrors of the AIDS epidemic and the struggles of the frontline health care workers who were learning how to care for the victims on the fly. Despite all the barriers, they proved the power of love and compassion.