NY hospital staff lets woman die on waiting room floor

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

There's a philosophy that says a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. If that's true - and I think it is - we're in a whole heap o' trouble.

'New York hospital officials said they are shocked by surveillance footage showing a woman falling from her chair in a hospital waiting area, writhing on the floor and dying as workers failed to help for more than an hour.'

Yeah, I'll bet they're shocked. Those cameras were no doubt installed to protect the hospital staff from liability and to provide evidence against those who might commit crimes on hospital property. Talk about ironic.

'Esmin Green, a 49-year-old psychiatric patient, had been involuntarily committed the previous morning to the psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and had waited nearly 24 hours for a bed.

After she fell to the floor at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, Green laid unattended for almost an hour before a nurse kicked her to see if she would respond, reported New York television station WNBC.

'The nurse kicked her. While she's lying on the floor, motionless. Can you say 'bedside manner'? BTW, all the videos I can find now are edited - you don't see the scenes of the nurse or the doctor. There was one unedited version I saw and the nurse tapped the woman with her toe, she wasn't trying to punt her. I wish I could find it again, but no dice. If you know where the unedited version is, please lemme know and I'll post the link.

'During that time, two hospital security guards apparently saw her but didn't do anything to help. The first walked by, and the second didn't rise from his chair until about 10 minutes later.'

Well, I guess she wasn't bothering anyone, just minding her own business, dying quietly. But it only goes from bad, to worse to...

'The tape shows a doctor walking by as well. He apparently looked at the woman but kept going.'

The security guards? Yeah, maybe I can give them a pass. The nurse? Uh, no. But the doctor?

Come on, what kind of doctor is he? I'd revoke the license of a veterinarian if he or she saw a woman (or a dog for that matter) lying motionless on the floor - in a hospital waiting area - and just turn and walk away. I don't care how busy, how overworked, how tired or whatever else he may have been - there's just no excuse for that level of callous indifference.

'The Brooklyn woman died on the floor, but not right away. The tape showed that she moved her legs and even rolled to her side, trying to get up.'

God rest her soul.

'The New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., which runs the hospital, said six people have been fired as a result of the incident, including the doctor, the nurse and the two security guards shown on the tape.'

I've read different versions, some saying that only the security guards were fired. Union rules and all that. I guess we'll have to wait and see.And this is the icing on the cake:

'While the videotape showed that she was on the floor at 6 a.m., the New York Civil Liberties Union said hospital records were filed stating that she was "awake, up and alert" at that time.'

On top of everything else, they were falsifying medical records.

We make fun of Islamic extremists for their disregard for the value of human life, yet look what happens in a major US hospital. And this instance just happened to get caught on tape and just happened to be made public. One can only image what else goes on off-camera in this and other US hospitals.

It's sad to think we've sunk so low that we have mentally ill people dying on the floors of big-city hospitals while hospital employees - including trained medial staff, sworn to save lives - do nothing and just let them die, alone.

It's sad and it's downright frightening.

(Thank you Sam for the tip!)