After working for years without pay, the only doctor in a poor rural area faces the imminent closure of her clinic.
Dr Karen Kinsell is the only doctor in Clay County, one of the poorest and unhealthiest regions in the US state of Georgia. Her run-down clinic has served the rural community for 22 years, but faces bankruptcy. She takes no salary and has spent her inheritance keeping the clinic open, but money is running out and if it closes, her patients will have no doctor.
When a medical university plans to open a new health centre, Kinsell hopes they will offer affordable healthcare for all and employ her. But their fees are too high for her poorest patients, whom she will not abandon.
With an impending state election and the outbreak of COVID, Kinsell doesn’t give up, taking on extra jobs and appealing for support in the national media in the hope of saving her clinic.
The Only Doctor is a documentary film by Matthew Hashiguchi.
