Personal Injury Law

$2 Million Awarded In Psychiatric Indifference Case

By Jane Akre

The family of a woman, who was found dead on a New York City psychiatric hospital emergency room floor, has received a $2 million settlement as part of a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Esmin Elizabeth Green, 49, collapsed and lay on the floor of Kings County Hospital Center in Brooklyn, struggling to get up, while two security guards and hospital staff looked at her then walked away.   

She had been at the city-owned hospital for more than 24 hours when a video camera recorded her death last June. An hour after she collapsed, someone checked her pulse and determined she had died.

The video circulated the world and highlighted a new low of indifference. 

The city-owned hospital accepted full responsibility for the death and says the money does not equate to the value of Green's life. It has undertaken relieving overcrowding by increasing the size of the staff by 200 to provide mental health services.  

Six hospital employees lost their jobs over the Green incident. 

Green, a mother of six, had emigrated from Jamaica about a decade ago and worked as an aide with the elderly and at a day care center before she lost her job. Her chuch knew her as "Sister Green". She suffered from depression.

Her death resulted from blood clots that moved from her legs to her lungs according to the medical examiner, reports the  New York Times.  

The Department of Justice, in a report issued in February, found at the city hospital patients were not treated for suicidal behavior, were restrained and given drugs instead of treatment and suffered abuse from other patients.

The psychiatric unit conditions, at the only area hospital for the mentally ill poor, were "highly dangerous and require immediate attention".    

Other reforms put in place by the city include replacing two top administrators and shortening the average wait time for psychiatric patients in the emergency room from 27 hours down to eight hours.

Kings County Hospital Center plans to become a national model for patient-centered mental health services.  #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on May 28, 2009 (boomark / email).