ER Neglect Leads to Woman's Death

A recent event in the emergency room of Brooklyn's Kings County Hospital shocked much of the country: 49-year-old Esmin Green, a Jamaican immigrant, was left waiting for nearly 24 hours before collapsing on the floor and dying. Despite staff members who saw the woman on the floor, reports indicate that no one checked on her until it was too late.

According to the Associated Press, the incident occurred early on the morning of June 19th, leaving Green, a mother of six and sufferer of depression, dead.

Unsurprisingly, sources report that one of Green's daughters is planning to file a personal injury lawsuit against the hospital, and possibly bring criminal charges against its employees. An injury lawyer will help her explore options. Apparently, three workers have already been fired because of the actions recorded by the surveillance camera, and three more have been suspended.

But, while a personal injury case is certainly in order, the problem of mental health facilities in the United States goes much deeper than this isolated incident. A year ago, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service and the New York Civil Liberties Union evidently filed a lawsuit against the Kings County Hospital, calling its psychiatric ward a "chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger."

How right they were.

Sadly, though, an interview with the president of the American Psychiatric Association published in the Chicago Tribune suggests that circumstances like those Green experienced are not unusual for psychiatric facilities in the United States.

Sources indicate that representatives from both sides of the earlier lawsuit appeared before a federal judge shortly after the incident and agreed on several reforms for the hospital to enact. One of them, it seems, will be mandatory waiting room checkups in 15-minute intervals.

According to the views of the APA president, though, such measures amount to only a temporary solution for a problem that's much larger than one hospital or even one woman's death. Apparently, beds for psychiatric patients are limited across the country, meaning that excessively long emergency room waits are the norm for those in need of psychiatric care.

Worse, many emergency room personnel are evidently not trained to handle psychiatric patients, making such situations veritable breeding grounds for personal injury suits and other mistreatment of sick individuals.

For example, the AP notes that Green's medical records indicate that she was using the restroom at 6:00 am and "sitting quietly" at 6:20, whereas the tape shows that Green was on the floor (if not already dead) at both times. Such apparent falsification of medical records, if widespread, could make investigations into the level of neglect of psychiatric patients in emergency room situations difficult to conduct.

Incidents like the tragic death of Ms. Green serve as reminders that those who are legitimately harmed by others can and should bring legal action against the parties responsible; otherwise, abuses are likely to continue until tragedies of great magnitude occur.