Video Shows Woman Dying on NY Hospital Floor

AssociatedPress
July 1st, 2008

officials agreed in court Tuesday to implement reforms at a psychiatric ward where surveillance footage captured a woman falling from her chair and dying as workers failed to help.

A sad death in New York City. Surveillance cameras at a city-run psychiatric hospital emergency room in Brooklyn capture a woman falling from a chair, writhing on the floor and dying. Hospital staff and other patients watch and do nothing for more than an hour. One guard doesn't even leave his chair, rolling it around the corner to stare at the body. The New York Civil Liberties Union sued the facility, Kings County Hospital Center, last year over the way it treats psychiatric patients.

((Donna Lieberman, NY Civil Liberties Union)) "A chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger and seeks an end to the culture of abuse and neglect where patients are regularly ignored and those that dare advocate for themselves are punished with forcible injections of psychotropic drugs."The city's medical examiner has yet to determine why the woman, 49-year old Esmin green, died on June 20th. She had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours.

((Rob Cohen, Lawyer Suing Hospital)) "There is a culture of indifference to patients that permeates every aspect of KCHC's psychiatric care." The city-run agency that runs the hospital released a statement, saying: "We are shocked and distressed by the situation. It is clear that some of our employees failed to act based on our compassionate standards of care. (The hospital has) directed the suspension and termination of those involved." Alan Aviles, Kings County Hospital Center The surveillance video eventually shows a member of the medical staff attending to Green. But it's too late, she had already died.

Ted Shaffrey, The Associated Press, New York