Family violence ‘almost broke’ her. But Jelena Dokic wasn’t prepared for this

There is a moment in returning SBS series The Hospital: In the Deep End, where tennis player-turned-broadcaster Jelena Dokic looks genuinely shocked. One of three high-profile participants in the real-life medical series, she is about to don scrubs and assist healthcare staff in the emergency department of Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital.

“It’s so busy,” she says. “There are doctors and nurses everywhere, there are patients in corridors. When you’re on the outside, you’re not a part of this, so it’s confronting to see.”

Dokic looks around the high-stress environment of the emergency department – machines beeping, staff and patients moving between acute-care resuscitation bays, the ICU and operating rooms.

“I don’t know what I was expecting,” she says. “I’m in a little bit of shock, to be honest.”

Minutes later, Dokic is accompanying emergency registrar Dr Andrew “AJ” Jones on his shift. First up is a man with a dislocated shoulder after wrestling with his young sons. When the man’s nine-year-old son tears up at the thought of causing his father’s injury, Dokic is calm and soothing, asking about his favourite sport.

“Rugby,” he says, his face brightening as she and the boy’s mum reassure him.

During the series, Dokic also observes the oncology department and, while shadowing Bree, a social worker, works with patients affected by family and domestic violence. Both are areas she requested to witness firsthand.

In the series Dokic speaks frankly about the mental and physical abuse she suffered from the age of six from her late father and tennis coach, Damir Dokic.

“Family violence and domestic violence really affected me,” she says in the show. “It tore my family apart, but it almost broke me as well. It almost cost me my life.”

A mental health advocate, she is keen to know more about the services offered to anyone seeking help with mental, physical and emotional abuse. She also asks how health workers cope in such high-stress situations.

“It’s hard to explain in words just how deep an effect, how much personally [being at the hospital] touched me,” she says, speaking before the show’s premiere. “I was really, really emotional at so many scenes.

“When you see people come through that are at their most vulnerable and then these extraordinary health workers are helping them, it’s just incredible.”

This is The Hospital: In the Deep End’s second series, after a first in 2024. That season featured actor Samuel Johnson, former MasterChef judge and writer Melissa Leong and Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis also donning scrubs and shadowing staff at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney.

This season, also a three-part documentary series, Dokic is featured along with actor Ruby Rose and food writer and former MasterChef Australia judge Matt Preston, who both attend St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. Preston helps in the acute geriatric ward and watches brain surgery; Rose works in the ICU, observes spinal surgeries and spends time in the Aboriginal healthcare unit.

All are keen, partly spurred by personal experience, to shine a light on the healthcare system – something Australian TV has a long history of covering.

Real-life hospital and medical documentary series have ranged from Emergency and RPA (Nine) to Nurses (Seven), Our Medicine (NITV) and Outback ER (ABC). There are also plenty of overseas shows such as 24 Hours in A&E (SBS, Seven), Critical: Between Life and Death (Netflix) and, although not real-life, award-winning US drama The Pitt, co-written by an emergency room doctor, which regularly earns praise for its accurate portrayals of emergency medicine.

Dr Andrew Jones says real-life hospital TV shows are extremely important.

“We’re working in a health system that’s under genuine strain and the people within that system are doing their best to absorb that pressure,” he says. “When you’re in the waiting room in an emergency department, what’s happening behind those doors isn’t always visible, and shows like this help demystify that process.”

He hopes viewers have a better understanding of what hospital teams – doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and admin and ward staff – are feeling at work.

“We’re all there to do our jobs, but we’re real people too,” he says. “When people come to the emergency department, they’re letting us into some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

“Having an opportunity to ease their suffering, even if it’s just to help them feel heard and feel safe in a difficult moment, we’re really lucky to get to do that. It’s a privilege to do what we do.”

Dokic says she was profoundly changed watching healthcare workers’ commitment to their jobs under relentless pressure.

“They are helping people every single day, and it takes so much out of them. But their passion for saving lives and helping others just goes above and beyond anything,” she says.

Four months after the series was filmed, Dokic actually found herself in hospital as a patient having surgery.

“I had a fibroid removed in December which I didn’t know I would go in for when I was filming this show,” she says. “I had to stay in the hospital and, again, got the experience of how well doctors and nurses take care of you.

“They treat you as if you’re their family. ”

Dokic wants The Hospital to inspire questions about what Australian healthcare workers need more of – from funding to better conditions, hospital space and beds. She’s also working towards becoming an official hospital volunteer in her own time.

“This experience has been eye-opening,” she says. “I would suggest that if anyone else ever has a chance to do anything like volunteer that they do. Anything we can do to lighten the load.”

The Hospital: In the Deep End airs 8.30pm Thursdays on SBS and SBS On Demand.

Crisis support is available from Lifeline on 13 11 14 or the National Sexual Assault, Domestic and Family Violence Counselling Service (1800RESPECT) on 1800 737 732.

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