Melissa Leong spoke to B&T about the harsh realities of filming the SBS series The Hospital: In The Deep End.
The hard-hitting show follows three presenters as they take a deep dive into public hospital St Vincent’s health system.
The role was a detour from Leong’s TV career to date, which has predominantly been focused on cooking shows such as Network 10’s MasterChef and Dessert Masters.
Despite her lack of previous experience in shows focused on healthcare, Leong says she and fellow hosts Samuel Johnson and Costa Georgiadis were chosen due to their experience in telling human interest stories.
“We were asked to partake in this project because we are known for being emotionally aware, we love to connect with people through sharing stories and be a little bit vulnerable,” she said.
“Hospitals are not places where I spend a lot of time naturally or professionally. But I feel like we all connected through just being human. So that kind of got me through the discomfort of unfamiliarity.”
During the filming, Leong discovered for herself just how much health professionals advocate for their patients.
“We watched doctors and nurses beg and bargain to find a bed for a complete stranger to save their lives, and they do this on a minute-by-minute daily basis. And it is a testament to how much frontline workers care and how much they dedicate to the well-being of their patients,” she said.
Unfortunately, this can often take a serious toll on the workers on the frontline. One worker said that she often sits in her car for at least 20 minutes after each shift because it’s just so intense every single day.
“We know that COVID was really hard on our frontline health care workers. And the turnover is high because of how much they went through for us. So I think we need to appreciate that it’s a system, it’s fragile and it’s held up by people”.
“We need to take care of those people,” Leong said.
“We’ve taken it for granted for the last 40 years. And in order for it to continue to be there and service us, we need to really appreciate and understand what’s going to make it sustainable in the long run.”
‘The first episode of The Hospital: In The Deep End is available to stream now on SBS On Demand. The three-part series airs weekly, with episode two premiering on SBS and SBS On Demand this Thursday and episode three premiering on Thursday June 20.’
