Name: Toughest Place To Be A ....
Genre: Documentary, Reality
Released: 2011-02-13

Paramedic

60 min

Angie Dymott is leaving her job as a paramedic in Cardiff, South Wales, to join the Bomberos of Guatemala City, capital of Guatemala and one of the most murderous places on earth. For two weeks, she will live and work with the Bomberos, combined paramedics and firemen, as they race to the scenes of gangland killings and drive-by shootings, trying to save lives and to stay alive. She will swap her roomy, high-tech, state-of-the-art ambulance for a cramped minibus. As the drug barons fight it out and innocents are caught in the crossfire, Angie will see more bloodshed and killings in a few days than in all her years on the job in Wales. Decades of civil war and increasing drug-related violence have left this Central American country close to chaos. The murder rate is bucking the global, downward, trend, and rising every year. Recently a leading international monitoring organisation described Guatemala as 'a paradise for criminals.' As she contemplates her departure, Angie is scared, not just of the violence but of failing her new colleagues. She knows she's a competent paramedic in the UK, but in Guatemala? Will she cope? Will she be a useful member of the team or merely a hindrance?

02

Bus Driver

60 min

In the second programme in the series where British workers accept the challenge to do their jobs in some of the toughest conditions in the world, London bus driver Josh West heads to Manila, the capital of the Philippines and the most densely populated city on Earth. Josh will be driving a Jeepney, a colourfully decorated, adapted jeep which has no power steering, dodgy lights and an uncomfortable seat. His host is Rogelio Castro and together they brave the chaos of the streets. It's a hair-raising and often hilarious ride, but Josh also learns about the incredible over-crowding and devastating poverty of Manila. He forms a strong bond with Rogelio and is moved by the daily struggle of an ordinary Filipino working to feed his family. It's an emotional roller coaster and Josh returns a changed man, aware that all the separates his life from Rogelio's is the country he happened to be born in.

03

Midwife

60 min

In the third programme in the series where British workers accept the challenge to do their jobs in some of the toughest conditions in the world, midwife Suzanne Saunders-Blundell abandons the high tech maternity unit at Good Hope Hospital in Sutton Coldfield to work in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia in West Africa. This is the third poorest country on earth, where one in twelve women dies in childbirth. Suzanne, a fan of natural child birth back in Britain, soon learns that there is little time for such luxuries at the Redemption Hospital. On her first day she has to deal with a traumatic still birth and during her stay a young woman she has helped to care for dies in front of her. Yet by the end of her stay Suzanne is amazed and inspired by the strength of the Liberian midwives she lives and works with, who in turn are keen to learn from her.