Admissions: Hospital Tales of Life, Love and Death

Author(s): Mira Harrison

Location(s): New Zealand (Aotearoa)

Genre(s): Fiction

Era(s): Contemporary

In Dr Mira Harrison’s first work of fiction, eight women share their experiences of life in a public hospital. These linked tales of doctors, nurses, cooks and cleaners working at the heart of clinical medicine are also intimate confessions of mothers, daughters, friends and lovers. The characters in Admissions keep an underfunded public hospital operating, with humour and love, as they battle challenges which are part of their daily lives.

These stories are much more than descriptions of women at work: they reveal the ever-present, ever-changing balance between professional and private worlds. We plan and predict, but we stumble and fall. Our careful – or haphazard – strategies are disrupted by falling in love, our connections to others, by the birth of our children, in living our ordinary lives, by our deepest or most impulsive feelings, by loss and grief – and ultimately by death. Admissions is engrossing, convincing and compassionate, the story-telling calm and seductive: things pop out to disturb when least expected from such everyday voices. This beautifully written book gives an authentic view of the hospital world, yet it is a different and original perspective, using women’s voices to tell universal stories which unite us in our common humanity.

Review this Book