The story in CNN this morning about the events leading up to the death of 49 year old Esmin Green in the King’s County Hospital Psychiatric Emergency Unit in Brooklyn, New York,completely rattled me this morning.
Accoring to the article on CNN.com, Ms. Green was involutarily admitted into the Psychiatric ER on June 18th and waited numerous hours for treatment. The surveillance video of the ER shows multiple people going in and out in the early morning hours of June 19th with Ms. Green sitting in the corner of the room then she passed out and lands on the floor on her face.
Not only does she fall in the emergency room but right in front of the security guards office and the first hospital person, a security guard, doesn’t even look at her until nearly 6am and he looked at her and turned away. Another few minutes go by before another guard rolls on his office chair to look at her — still on the floor on her face — and then he just wheels away. Finally, just past 6:30am after an hour on the ground the medical unit comes in but its too late.
This story and the subsequent hospital videos told a story that we may have never seen because the hospital took this already horrendous situation and made it worse by falsifying her medical records. According to the records, Ms. Green was up and about and even went to the bathroom at 6am. At 6am the first guard looked at her across the room and exited.
As disturbing as this story is it’s the one that isn’t mentioned in the videos and the articles and that is the lack of human kindness amongst the other people in the Emergency Room. In the videos you see people going in and out without any sort of care or concern.
Granted these people are patients but I’m not talking about requiring any medical skill or training. I want to know where was the person that was outraged that a person is on the floor? No one even walked up to her to ask her if she was okay. Not even to try to help her up. Not the patients, not the guards, not anyone… let alone those who took the Hippocratic Oath.
Have we become such a litigious society that we can’t even ask if someone is okay without fearing being sued? Or has our courtesy toward each other been lost? What if this was your mother or sister or child? What if this was YOU?
Our lack of human compassion is frightening.
What happened to us?
A little quirky, a little fun, a little serious, and very loud! I'm the voice behind the radio broadcast and writer behind this blog. I'm always on the lookout for something new, innovative, creative, fun, or just pisses me off... GAME ON! 
