Kings County Fires 6 In Reaction to Patient Death; Tape Shows Gross Negligence
By MICHELLE FRIEDMAN
Six employees of Kings County Hospital - including the head of its psychiatric unit - were fired last week after a video was released showing that a patient who had waited nearly 24 hours to be seen collapsed on the hospital floor and was left convulsing on the ground for an hour while hospital workers did nothing to help her. The patient, Esmin Green, died shortly after.

ALAN D. AVILES: 'Shocked and distressed.'

Psych unit head Pierre Arty and Kenneth Jones - the hospital's Director of Security - were fired for their roles in the June 19 death.

Mr. Arty was quoted by the Daily News as saying, "I'd rather not talk right now. I think it's in my best interest not to say anything."

Fired for Not Assisting

Four other employees were fired - including two security guards - because the video showed them standing idly by as Ms. Green lay dying on the floor.

City officials released the video as an exchange of evidence in a civil-rights lawsuit filed a year ago by the New York Civil Liberties Union and mental health advocates that claimed that psychiatric patients at Kings County are subject to abuse, neglect, unsanitary conditions, and at times, are drugged into submission.

The Health and Hospitals Corporation agreed July 1 to increase the monitoring of patients at psychiatric wards in Brooklyn. Kings County hospital will now be required to have no more than 25 patients in the emergency room at any time, and to check them every 15 minutes. The checks are to be documented in a signed, sworn log. The hospital also agreed to reduce typical waiting times from 10 to 13 hours within four months.

HHC officials said that Ms. Green waited so long in the psychiatric emergency room because there was a shortage of psychiatric beds.

HHC President 'Shocked'

"We are shocked and distressed by this situation. It is clear that some of our employees failed to act based on our compassionate standards of care," said city Health and Hospitals Corp. President Alan D. Aviles in a July 1 statement.

"Horrified is much too nice a word," Mayor Bloomberg said after watching the 107-minute video the same day. "Disgusted, I think, is a better word."

A spokeswoman for the city Medical Examiner said the cause of death is under investigation.

Records Falsified?

The four video cameras in the emergency room show that Ms. Green slid off her chair at 5:32 a.m. - almost 24 hours after she was admitted.

However, hospital records state that Ms. Green got up and went to the bathroom at 6 a.m., nearly half an hour after the video shows she collapsed. Hospital records also state that she was "sitting quietly in the waiting area" 20 minutes later.

Half an hour after her collapse, the video shows a security guard walking in to look at her, and walking away as she lay on the floor.

Later in the video, a security guard strolls into the room, and then strolls out again. A staff member in a yellow jacket can be seen poking Ms. Green with her foot.

Offered Help Too Late

By the time staff members tried to aid Ms. Green with a gurney and an oxygen tank, an hour after she collapsed, it was too late.

Ms. Green was 49 years old. Her neighbors said that she had worked at a day-care center and as a caretaker for the elderly, and had suffered some kind of mental breakdown recently, after which she was involuntarily admitted to the hospital.

City officials said they would pay all funeral costs, and the cost of transporting her remains back to the island of Jamaica, where her six children live.

A spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's Office said that the civil rights investigation triggered by the advocates' lawsuit will now be expanded to include Ms. Green's death.