CaribWorldNews, BROOKLYN, NY, Weds. July 2, 2008: Outrage and shock are reverberating through the city`s Caribbean Diaspora population following the release yesterday of security camera footage showing a Jamaican migrant left to die in a Brooklyn hospital unattended by staff and other patients.
The video, recorded at 5:32 a.m. June 19, shows psychiatric patient Esmin Green, 49, slumping from a seat to the floor of the psychiatric waiting room of the Kings County Hospital at 451 Clarkson Avenue in Brooklyn, NY. She remained there ignored by other patients and at least one security guard until help arrives more than an hour later at 6:36 a.m. By then she`s already dead.
The footage was released by advocates suing Kings County on behalf of other patients subjected to what they call `inhumane` treatment at the facility.
`This goes beyond outrage,` Patrick Beckford, northeast director for the Jamaican Diaspora, told CWN yesterday. `How can you treat a human being like that? Appalled is too light a word.`
The city`s Health and Hospitals Corp, which oversees Kings County, has fired two employees involved in the incident. Termination proceedings have begun against four more. And it says improvements have been made to the operation of the hospital`s psychiatric service.
But Beckford said this is not nearly enough. `I think there should be a thorough investigation of that facility,` he said.
In addition to neglecting Green, hospital employees fabricated a description of her death in a report, saying she was `up and about` at the time she was on the floor.
`If you`re comfortable enough to falsify documents, this must be the practice. There must have been other incidents,` said Beckford.
Shaun Walsh, a Jamaican nurse who works with psychiatric patients, also suggested this type of treatment was commonplace, not only at Kings County, but any where poor mental health patients are treated.
`If it had been a hospital in a neighborhood that was more affluent, you would have a different response,` said Walsh. He said the stigma still attached to mental illness meant that `mentally ill people are looked down upon.`
`I wasn`t so surprised that it happened, to be honest with you,` he said of Green`s fate.
Jamaica-born Brooklyn Assemblyman Nick Perry said the incident proves the necessity of cameras in places where government services are provided. He had worked to get security cameras in subway stations.
`The fact that this was caught on camera sends a message to every worker working with the public that they have to provide quality service,` said Perry.
Jamaican-American Congresswoman, Yvette Clarke, in a statement to CWN, expressed `heartfelt condolence to the Green family.`
`Words cannot express how horrific a tragedy your loss is,` said the congresswoman. `It is clear that there was a massive breach in the protocol for patient care at Kings County Hospital with regard to the treatment of Ms. Green.`
She also called on the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation to `move with all deliberate speed to examine the staffing, regulations and protocol as it relates to the care of our most vulnerable patients in the psychiatric ward, known as the G Building at Kings County Hospital.`
`It is my fervent hope that the proper and most ethical standard of care is extended to all patients at Kings County and at our medical facilities throughout this nation,` added Rep. Clarke.
The cause of Green`s death is still to be determined but HHC has so far said they will pay for her funeral expenses and the cost of taking her body back to Jamaica for burial.
Kings County Hospital Center was founded 175 years ago, when Brooklyn was its own city and construction of the Brooklyn Bridge would not begin for almost 40 years. The facility is mid-way through a $500 million rebuilding and modernization that is the largest in HHC’s history. The project was launched in 1997 and is scheduled for completion in 2009. The hospital on its website ironically states it `remains staunchly committed to patient-centered care.` - By Erline Andrews/CWN NY
