Psych Ward Workers Ignore Dying Woman, Falsify Patient Records to Bury Incident

Thursday, October 30, 2008 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
Tags: psych ward, health news, Natural News

(NaturalNews) Examination of security videos has revealed that security guards and care workers in a New York hospital ignored a woman as she lay dying on the floor of a psych ward for more than a half hour.

"Thank God for the videotape, because no one would have believed this could have happened," said Donna Lieberman of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "There's a clear possibility of criminal wrongdoing with regard to record keeping, and that has to be investigated."

The New York City Department of Investigation has launched an intensive probe into Kings County Hospital, which appears to have doctored the dead woman's charts to cover up the negligence that led to her death.

The security video shows 49-year old Esmin Green, a native of Jamaica, falling out of her chair at 5:32 a.m. on June 19. She had been admitted to the hospital's psych ward for "agitation," and had been sitting about three feet from an observation window, in a room with two other patients.

At 5:53 a.m., the tape shows Green lying face down with her legs splayed as a security guard walks by, stops and stares at her for 20 seconds, then walks off. By 6 a.m., the tape shows her writhing on the floor with her legs thrashing around. Her medical chart, however, reports that at that time she was "awake, up and about, went to the bathroom."

At 6:04 a.m., Green rolled on to her back, and by 6:08 a.m. she had stopped moving. At 6:10 a.m., a security guard pushed his chair in front of the camera and sat down. He is clearly seen to look at the motionless woman and scoot his chair away.

The medical chart reports that Green was "sitting quietly in [the] waiting room" at 6:20 a.m., although coroners determined that by that point, she had already died.

Eventually, another patient summoned hospital staff, who removed Green's body.

Green's cause of death is still under investigation. The two security guards and four other hospital employees have been fired.

Sources for this story include: www.nydailynews.com.