NEW YORK (CNN) — Six hospital employees have been fired or suspended after ignoring for more than an hour a woman who collapsed and died in a New York emergency room waiting area.
On June 18, Esmin Green, 49, 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 New York Civil Liberties Union, which on Tuesday released surveillance camera video of the incident.
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.
In addition, the organization said, hospital staff falsified Green’s records to cover up the time she had lain there without assistance.
In May 2007, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Mental Hygiene Legal Service filed suit against Kings County in federal court, alleging that conditions at the facility are filthy. Patients are often forced to sleep in plastic chairs or on floors covered in urine, feces and blood while waiting for beds, the groups allege, and often go without basic hygiene such as showers, clean linens and clean clothes.
The lawsuit claims that patients who complain face physical abuse and are injected with drugs to keep them docile.
On Monday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was appalled by the surveillance video.
Six hospital employees disciplined in ER death – CNN.com
I wonder how many times this happens without Video Tape? In How Many Hospitals across the Nation?
Patients are ignored in Hospitals all the time, because they don’t have Health Care Insurance. I see it in the Three Hospitals near me all the time. It has happened to me Personally!
Same ol Story… With an Opinion… 