Woman dies in Brooklyn ER, caught on video
 

NEW YORK - City hospital officials agreed in court Tuesday to implement reforms at a psychiatric ward where surveillance footage showed a woman falling from her chair, writhing on the floor and dying as workers failed to help for more than an hour.
Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, falling face down on the floor.

She was dead by 6:35, when someone on the medical staff, flagged down by a person in the waiting room, finally approached, nudged Green with her foot, and gently prodded her shoulder, as if to wake her. The staffer then left and returned with someone wearing a white lab coat who examined her and summoned help.

Until the staffer's appearance, Green's collapse barely caused a ripple. Other patients waiting a few feet away didn't react. Security guards and a member of the hospital's staff appeared to notice her prone body at least three times, but made no visible attempt to see if she needed help.

One guard didn't even leave his chair, rolling it around a corner to stare at the body, then rolling away a few moments later.

Green, who had been involuntarily committed the previous morning, and had waited overnight for a bed, stopped moving about half an hour after she collapsed.

The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospital, said six people have been fired as a result, including security personnel and members of the medical staff.

The psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn had already been a subject of complaints by advocates for the mentally ill.

A state agency, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service, and the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit a year ago, calling the psychiatric center "a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger."

Both sides in the dispute went before a federal judge Tuesday to jointly file papers in which the hospital system agreed to a series of reforms. Under the agreement, patients in the waiting room will now be checked every 15 minutes.

Over the next four months, the hospital will attempt to shorten the median waiting time to around 10 hours. A judge is scheduled to sign off on the agreement Wednesday.

The tape of Green's wait has also been turned over to prosecutors.

Green's medical records raised the possibility that someone might have tried to cover up the circumstances of the death.

One notation said that at 6 a.m., she was "awake, up and about" and had just used the restroom. Another said that at 6:20 a.m., she was sitting quietly in the waiting room, and had a normal blood pressure. During both of those times, Green was either in her death throes or already dead.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080702/...l_ward_death_6

they dont call it Killa County for nothing...

I was at Queens Hospital ("Queens General" before they changed it) and the patient i shared a room with, they were transferring her to Kings County for some surgery. She wasnt from the area so she didnt know, but the nurses were murmuring quite a bit as she was leaving. and then, when my aunt came to visit me, she goes "well at least you aint at Killa County, lord knows what they do over there."

ETA: i saw the footage on the news last nite and it was really heart-breaking. this is why people dont go to the hospital.

I saw this on Nancy Grace last night. It was heartbreaking seeing her convulse on the floor and no one do anything about it. Poor lady, I feel for her and her family.

This is just a FUBARed and FUGLY situation all the way around it... The hospital should be condemned or at best lost all licensing...

And no joke, in a city near you, there are some jacked up hospitals... It probably ain't ALL the licensed clinical professionals, but there some ones that need to go... And if you are in the ATL, don't go to Grady... My physician friends are telling me, lab slips and x-ray duties do not get followed through there... And the State is about to close Grady...

Really? That's too bad. Grady is the only level one trauma center within 100 miles - and it's one of the best trauma centers in the country. I know that they've had some financial difficulties but I didn't know they were on the verge of shutting down.

I also heard they were shutting down. On the topic, I saw the video yesterday and was thinking they were bringing up that old story. I didn't realize it had happened again!

Grady is the reason I didn't go to Emory for medical school. I can't say I'll be sorry to see it go.

I smell a lawsuit.

I smell guano.

http://planetsmilies.net/animal-smiley-4949.gif

Things must be sloooow in the land of ponies and rainbows.

I know, tell me about it.

Because of gross mismanagement and lack of follow-through on clinical staffs requests. The Emory residents do not like working there... I heard that from several of them and it is a well known fact. Moreover, too many high powered people are fearful of cleaning house in that place...

What's going to happen is the State is going to have little choice but to shut it down...

And yeah, there is no trauma treatment within 100 miles of that location, so I don't know what they will do if they do close it... As the violations mount up...

I feel for the residents who have to go there... Once the med vets get back, it would be nice to see if they improve that situation...

(CNN) -- The relatives of a woman who died on the floor of a New York hospital say they plan to file a $25 million lawsuit against the city and the facility where Esmin Green died.

Esmin Green's daughter, Tecia Harrison, says disciplinary action against hospital workers is not enough for her.

Green's family is also calling for criminal charges against hospital workers, who they say failed to help her and then attempted to cover up the circumstances of her death.
"My sister was killed twice," said Brenda James, Green's sister. "First, by those who neglected to offer her the needed health care. Secondly, she was killed by those who tried to cover up this criminal action."

The family has retained a lawyer, Sanford Rubenstein, to file the suit.

Green, a Jamaican immigrant, had been involuntarily admitted to the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on June 18 for what the hospital described as "agitation and psychosis."

Surveillance camera footage captured the mother of six sliding off of a chair and onto the floor of waiting room of the hospital's psychiatric emergency department, where she lay convulsing for more than a hour before anyone helped her.

The footage appears to capture several employees passing by her as she lay on the floor struggling.

The New York Civil Liberties Union said last week that the hospital falsified medical records for the timeframe covering Green's visit, describing her as awake and going to the bathroom when she is seen on the video.

Seven workers, including doctors, nurses and security guards, have been fired or suspended since Green's death, the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation said. It's not clear whether any of the employees have appealed the disciplinary actions against them.

The agency said it referred the matter to law enforcement and is cooperating with the investigation.

"We failed Esmin Green and believe her family deserves fair and just compensation," it said in a statement.

Autopsy results have not been released.

Green's daughter, who reluctantly watched the footage for the first time this week, says disciplinary action doesn't make up for her family's loss.

"Firing is not enough for me, for my brothers. They don't know this wonderful woman they took away from us," said Tecia Harrison, who traveled to New York from Jamaica to attend her mother's funeral Sunday.

"We want them to pay for it," she said.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/08/hos...ref=newssearch

i hope they get every freakin penny.