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Patient neglected in ER for 24 hours dies
By Jimmy Downs
Jul 3, 2008 - 12:44:51 PM

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THURSDAY July 3, 2008 (foodconsumer.org) -- A patient suffering agitation and psychosis died at Kings County on June 19 while waiting without care for nearly 24 hour in an emergency room at a public psychiatric ward in Brooklyn, media reports.

Esmin Elizabeth Green, 49, was involuntarily taken to the hospital by emergency medical service workers on June 18.  She was placed in a chair in the G Building, the emergency room waiting for a room to become available.

Evidence from four surveillance cameras showed that Ms. Green slid off her chair at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, nearly a whole day after she was admitted.

About half an hour after she collapsed, a security guard went over to look at her and then walked away leaving her there motionless and doing nothing to help her.   The guard came back later into the room, and then left again doing nothing.

A staff member also noticed Ms. Green lying there and went over and prodded her with her foot, but doing nothing to help her.

The rescue staff members came in the room nearly one hour after Ms. Green collapsed and tried to revive her, but it was too late.

A nurse falsified the patient's charts to indicate that Ms. Green was ok at a time half hour after she died, media reports.

A spokeswoman for the city medical examiner was cited by The New York Times as saying the cause of death was under investigation.

According to the times, the New York Civil Liberties Union and others last year sued Kings County Hospital Center in federal court in Brooklyn accusing the public hospital of "keeping psychiatric patients in filthy conditions, systematically neglecting them and drugging them into submission."

Because of the accident, the director of psychiatry, the doctor on duty and the director of security at Kings County have been fired, according to Ana Marengo, a spokeswoman for the Health and Hospitals Corporation cited by the times.

Ms. Green's death also pushed the New York City's Health and Hospitals Corporation to agree on Tuesday to step up monitoring of patients at the psychiatric ward in Brooklyn.    The agency agreed to settle the lawsuit filed by the Civil Liberties Union.