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HARVEY - A documentary titled "People Worth Caring About: North Dakota" has an episode with a focus on a nursing home facility in Harvey. The episode focuses on SMP Health – St. Aloisius, following Sherri Engkvist, director of nursing and long term care; Tonia Erickson, director of social services; and Kathy Sieg, a Unit B supervisor and nurse. It also focuses on four of the residents at the St. Aloisius nursing home, showing how they live their daily lives.
Peter Murphy Lewis, creator of the series, is a former certified nursing assistant and takes the opportunity to spotlight other healthcare professionals. The series has previously covered nursing homes in Nebraska, Ohio, New Mexico, Kentucky and Florida. The series traveled to seven long-term care facilities across North Dakota for its North Dakota season.
Lesley Reetz, Distribution & Press coordinator for “People Worth Caring About,” said North Dakota's part of the series is a piece of a larger project covering six states so far, with five more filming this fall before the full series is available on streaming.
Erickson described filming as a really good experience. Sieg said the crew was great to work with and that she is glad they were able to show people what long-term care is really about. Engkvist said having the crew there helped remind the staff even more of all the things they work for.
The nursing home workers also said the film crew filmed many different aspects of the daily duties of a facility worker. The documentary focused on different roles of the three workers at the home. They were filmed interacting with the residents, who also were spotlighted on the show.
Engkvist, Erickson and Sieg said they all saw the episode when it premiered in Fargo. They described it as really good and said it shows the importance of long-term care provided in North Dakota.
Engkvist said she really enjoys the people and community at St. Aloisius. Erickson remarked the three of them together have 100 years of service, which shows their dedication to their patients. Sieg said she enjoys what she does. She said there is no other job she would rather do and brought up the importance of empathy in her work. She called it a gift to be able to help take care of people in need.
Engkvist mentioned the residents are what make St. Aloisius a special place, and Sieg described the staff as one big family.
The hospital staff also mentioned the nursing home activities shown in the documentary are just the tip of the iceberg. They said the few faces shown on the documentary represent many more people working behind the scenes. The team strives to work together, keeping the community at the center of care, even describing residents as family.
They also said they are grateful for the positivity the documentary is putting out there, especially in contrast to the bleak media attention nursing homes received during the coronavirus pandemic.
The documentary emphasizes the importance of the many qualities of working in healthcare. It touches on how nurses need to treat patients, how a healthcare professional acts to keep residents calm, how professionals cope with the loss of residents and more.
The film team is looking for a streaming service to pick up the documentary, but viewings at local theaters are being planned for the tail end of 2026 and the beginning of 2027. Trailers for the documentary can be found on the North Dakota Long Term Care Association website.