Image from CNN
Take a good look at the picture above. Notice the woman lying on the floor? That woman lay dead on the floor of Brooklyn psychiatric hospital for over an hour. This was not a simple death that was ignorable. Esmin Green lay on the floor convulsing for nearly a half an hour before she finally died. No, folks, this wasn’t just a simple waiting room death. No hopital personnel helped this woman, even though she was clearly in trouble.
Esmin Green was involuntarily admitted to the psychiatric emergency department of Kings County Hospital Center on June 18 for what the hospital describes as “agitation and psychosis.”
Upon her admission, Green waited nearly 24 hours for treatment, said the civil liberties union, which was among the groups filing suit against the facility last year seeking improved conditions for patients.
The surveillance camera video shows the woman rolling off a waiting room chair, landing face-down on the floor and convulsing. Her collapse came at 5:32 a.m. June 19, the NYCLU said, and she stopped moving at 6:07 a.m. During that time, the organization said, workers at the hospital ignored her.
At 6:35 a.m., the tape shows a hospital employee approaching and nudging Green with her foot, the group said. Help was summoned three minutes later.
AS the article goes on, that wasn’t the only indignity Esmin suffered. To cover their collective asses for negligence (? or worse), Brooklyn Psychiatric Hospital then falsified her records. And we find out, just a few paragraphs later in the article, that the parent company KNEW of the discrepencies when they started their in-house investigation.
A Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman said it was aware of the discrepancies in Green’s record when it began the preliminary investigation on June 20. That information is now in the hands of various investigatory agencies, she said.
For this horiffic treatment of a patient, 6 employees were suspended or terminated. That’s it. It takes a lawsuit to look for accountability, and get the necessary care to the patients that this hopsital has failed dismally to do. No one is being truly held accountable for their actions.
And the one nagging thought I keep having over this horrible story, if Esmin had family members living near her, would these hospital employees have treated her differently, would she still be alive?
[...] that Ignored Her Posted on July 9, 2008 by archcrone It was originally reported that Esmin Green did not have family. Well, she does, and they are not taking her death lying down. The relatives of a woman who died on [...]