Review of Critical Care

After an alien trader visits Voyager The Doctor finds himself on at an overcrowded and under supplied hospital ward. He is understandable not happy that his program and mobile emitter were stolen but can't ignore the suffering of the many patients. After treating a few people he finds himself summoned from the Red Level he is on to the Blue Level; what he finds there shocks him; here there are a handful of patients with no real illness being given the drugs that are desperately needed by those on Red Level. He is told that the people on Red Level are deemed to be less important to the society. In an attempt to help Tebbis, one of the Red patients he takes medicine from the Blue Level, after a success he tries to help everybody there, unfortunately when the authorities find out they withdraw all the medication and Tebbis dies. Forced to stay on Blue Level the Doctor takes drastic action which puts the hospital's administrator in danger. While the Doctor is off Voyager the crew spend time looking for the trader and then Tuvok and Neelix use interrogation techniques that probably breech several Star Fleet protocols.

This was an enjoyable episode with a nice moral dilemma. As usual Robert Picardo did a great job as The Doctor. There were also notable guest performances from Larry Drake as the administrator and Gregory Itzin as the doctor in charge of Blue Level who comes around to support The Doctor.