how cruel. i want to say that i send my sympathy to the green family. that was soo cruel of that hospital.
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how cruel. i want to say that i send my sympathy to the green family. that was soo cruel of that hospital.
My prayers and sympathy go out to the Green family. It's never easy losing a loved one, but to lose her in this preventable manner is devasting. My prayers are for God to release His comfort and peace into your hearts and to surround you with His love.
The way you were left to die on the floor of a medical institution that should have helped you, is just dispicable and disgraceful.To know that your final hours were spent here on earth around people who did not lift a finger to help you in your time of need is just unbearable to think of. My prayer, is that God grants you peace in your rest ,until you join him in heaven.
I am so sorry to see this happen. As a nurse I can not belive the hardness of heart shown this child of God. So much anger and pain around your people, Esmin . I will keep them all in prayer. I pray blessings to your family and friends. I pray this never happens in America again.
I am praying for the family. Where in our society did we loose love? When did complacency become okay? It is not okay.
Green, 49, is shown rolling off a waiting room chair at King County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, on June 19. She lands face-down on the floor, convulsing.
Surveillance video captures her lying on the floor for more than an hour as several hospital workers see her and appear to ignore her. She died there.
But to fellow members of her church, she was known as "Sister Green." Together, they served as a family for her in the decade after she left Jamaica for New York.
Green left six children in Jamaica -- the youngest now 14. She had been sending money home.
Her oldest daughter, 31-year-old Tecia Harrison, told CNN that she cannot bear to think of her mother's last moments.
"I haven't seen it, and I don't think I have the heart or mind to watch it because that's my mother there," Harrison said. "That's the woman who gave birth to me 31 years ago. I cannot watch that."
Green was involuntarily admitted to the hospital's psychiatric emergency department June 18 for "agitation and psychosis."
Friend Peter Pilgrim says he saw Green a few days before her death. He says she was struggling with losing her job at a day care center and had been forced to move out of her apartment.
"Esmin Green is a beautiful person," he said. "She has a good heart. She loved people, and she loved children."
Green's pastor says she had been hospitalized with emotional problems once before and recently appeared to be in distress again. So the pastor called 911, a decision that haunts her.
Upon her admission, Green waited nearly 24 hours for treatment, said the New York Civil Liberties Union, which released the surveillance video of the incident Tuesday.
Her collapse came at 5:32 a.m. June 19, the NYCLU said, and she stopped moving at 6:07 a.m. During that time, according to the organization, workers at the hospital ignored her.
At 6:35 a.m., the tape shows a hospital employee approaching and nudging Green with her foot, the group said. Help was summoned three minutes later. Video Watch the surveillance video »
In addition, the organization said, hospital staff falsified Green's records to cover up the time she had lain there without assistance.
"Contrary to what was recorded from four different angles by the hospital's video cameras, the patient's medical records say that at 6 a.m., she got up and went to the bathroom, and at 6:20 a.m. she was 'sitting quietly in waiting room' -- more than 10 minutes since she last moved and 48 minutes after she fell to the floor."
The medical examiner's office says it is still trying to determine what caused Green's death. Her medical records will be the focus of an investigation. Hospital documents say she was "awake and sitting quietly" at the very moment she was actually struggling on the floor.
The New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which oversees the hospital, released a statement Tuesday saying it was "shocked and distressed by this situation. It is clear that some of our employees failed to act based on our compassionate standards of care."
James Saunders, a spokesman for the corporation, said seven employees have been fired or suspended: the chief of psychiatry, chief of security, a doctor, two nurses and two security guards.
A Health and Hospitals Corporation spokeswoman said it was aware of the discrepancies in Green's record when it began the preliminary investigation June 20.
The corporation pledged to put "additional and significant" reforms in place in the wake of the death.
A federal investigation is also under way, looking into abuse allegations at Kings County that were detailed in a lawsuit in 2007.
In May 2007, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Mental Hygiene Legal Service sued Kings County in federal court, alleging that conditions at the facility are filthy. Patients are often forced to sleep in plastic chairs or on floors covered in urine, feces and blood while waiting for beds, the groups allege, and often go without basic hygiene such as showers, clean linens and clean clothes.
The lawsuit claims that patients who complain face physical abuse and are injected with drugs to keep them docile.
The hospital, the suit alleges, lacks "the minimal requirements of basic cleanliness, space, privacy, and personal hygiene that are constitutionally guaranteed even to convicted felons."
Among the reforms agreed to in court Tuesday by the hospital are additional staffing; checking of patients every 15 minutes; and limiting to 25 the number of patients in the psychiatric emergency ward, officials said.
In addition, the hospital said it is expanding crisis-prevention training for staff; expanding space to prevent overcrowding; and reducing patients' wait time for release, treatment or placement in an inpatient bed.
This is just inexcusable. Major changes need to be made in hospital reform in order for this not to ever happen again. Condolences to her family. She would still be here with us if it wasn't for the negligence of the hospital.
PlusVideo Shows Woman Dying on NY Hospital FloorVideo Shows Woman Dying on NY Hospital FloorThe Associated PressAt a New York hospital, 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. (July 1)(New York)) 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,
Lauren Tenney
13 years agoCome June 18 - 19, 2010 to mark the 2 year anniversary of Esmin Green's murder-by-neglect and help us get our questions answered concerning historical and up-to-the-minute abuses that have occurred and are occurring at this facility. Kings County Hospital Center Psychiatric Emergency Room For information and PDF download, www.TheOpalProject.org/vigil.html Thank You, WE THE PEOPLE In remembrance of Esmin Green who was murdered-by-neglect at Kings County Hospital Center Psychiatric Emergency Room, June 19, 2008. Contact: Lauren Tenney (516) 319-4295 www.TheOpalProject.org/vigil.html
Lauren Tenney
13 years agoDEMONSTRATION IN REMEMBRANCE OF ESMIN GREEN SURVIVORS OF PSYCHIATRIC ATROCITIES AND ALLIES TO SPEAK OUT AND HOLD A VIGIL IN HONOR OF EMSIN GREEN WHO WAS MURDERED-BY-NEGLECT AT THE KINGS COUNTY HOSPITAL CENTER PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY ROOM. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact/Interviews: Lauren Tenney, Psychiatric Survivor phone: (516) 319-4295 e-mail: laurentenney@aol.com website: www.theopalproject.org/vigil.org Who: Esmin Green who was murdered-by-neglect at the Kings County Hospital Center Psychiatric Emergency Room, All People. What: Demonstrations, Speak Outs and Candle Light Vigil to mark 2 years since the murder-by-neglect of Ms. Esmin Elizabeth Green, mourn her loss, and condemn continued human rights violations by organized psychiatry. Why: WE THE PEOPLE call to shut down Kings County Hospital Center's psychiatric services; for an end of abuse, torture, and neglect in the wake of Ms. Green's death on June 19, 2008, while detained at Kings County Hospital Center's Psychiatric Emergency Room; and to call attention to human rights violations committed since then. Where: Kings County Hospital Center, Psychiatric Emergency Room, Building R. 410 Winthrop Street Brooklyn, NY 11203 Date: June 18, 2010 5 PM - June 19, 2010, 5 PM Time: Press Conference 6 PM June 18 (Demonstrations begin at 5 PM June 18, Candle Light Vigil, 8:30 PM - 5 PM June 19) Websites: www.theopalproject.org/vigil.html www.mindfreedom.org WE THE PEOPLE began as an alliance of people who were accused of and treated for "mental illness". We have survived with our lives, unlike Ms. Green. However, our liberty, our health, and our futures continue to be under the threat of the therapeutic state - and so is yours. Sanford Rubenstein, the attorney for the family of Ms. Green will be speaking at the press conference. He urges, "Only by people speaking out and remembering what happened to Esmin Green can we prevent others from suffering her fate". Also speaking out will be people who survived commitment at Kings County Hospital Center and now work to make sure others do not have to experience what they were subjected to and Assemblyman Felix Ortiz, Chair of the Mental Health Committee (invited). On June 19 it will be two years since Esmin Green was murdered-by- neglect at the Kings County Hospital Center Psychiatric Emergency Room. In February 2010, it was reported by the media that a male “patient” was raped by an employee of Kings County who was charged for the crime. As recently as April 27, 2010 more citations of abuses were published in the news. Not only does this abuse and torture happen - but it happens in the multi-million dollar new psychiatric building. This was supposed to end murder, abuse, rape, and torture of people confined within its walls - after the City agreed to court monitoring because of the abuses and torture that people were subjected to while detained in the facility. •This abuse and torture has been going on for centuries with no end in sight - we must make our voices heard! •Kings County is not safe. •Kings County should be closed down. •Rape and Death are not good outcomes. •COME CALL TO CLOSE THIS PSYCHIATRIC INSTITUTION DOWN. SOME OF OUR QUESTIONS: Department of Justice; Center for Medicaid/Medicare Services; Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration; Health and Hospitals Corporation; New York City Department of Mental Hygiene; New York State Office of Mental Health; Commission on Quality Care; --- where are you? Why are independent external advocates still not allowed into this facility? Why is the government paying for this with millions of tax-dollars pumped into this place? Why is the NYPD Department of Investigations report siting multiple systemic problems being ignored? When is the Grand Jury going to present a bill? The experience of involuntarily detainment in a psychiatric emergency room or in a psychiatric institution is tantamount to torture. Human rights and feminist activist Kate Millett during the negotiations on the UN Convention on the subject of forced treatment and confinement of persons with disabilities stated, "The power of an entire civilization massed against one lone individual. Every phone and lock and guard and drug . . . Everything conspires to make you completely alone and terrified. Malleable. These are the conditions of torture".. As in the HIGHLANDER STATEMENT of 2000, we call on all people to "act individually and collectively to ensure that self-determination, respect, ethical behavior, and humane voluntary supports and services become the foundation of a reinvented mental health system. This system must first and foremost do no harm". We invite you, we implore you, to meet with us and work with us towards a humane environment and to establish alternatives to the atrocities of confinement, drugs, electroshock treatment, restraint, and seclusion. We let our light shine in remembrance of the victims of the mental illness system - for people who have suffered because of fear and ignorance - for people who have been traumatized - for people who have been disabled - for people who are dead - and for people who are not really living We are lighting candles to celebrate Esmin Green's life and passion as a way to spark necessary change and call for the respect of human rights in mental health. We offer the light of these candles as a sign of love for our families and friends, and our elected officials, and broader communities who often trapped in circumstance and by the psychiatric system cannot understand us as we struggle to communicate. All people committed to human rights, join us. We invite all people to join us during this 24-hour period and stand united in support of the demand that everyone receive the full benefit of their human rights and the preservation of their liberty, dignity, and respect. There are vigils happening all over the world for Ms. Green to stand in solidarity with New Yorkers. If you can attend the vigil or not, call Governor Patterson (518) 474-8390, Mayor Bloomberg, (212) NEW-YORK, and your elected Representatives to express your outrage about Ms. Green's murder and insist that the City of New York stand in full compliance with International law and Human Rights. If you would like to co-sponsor or endorse this demonstration, vigil, and its follow up forums, please contact us. WE THE PEOPLE ###