Investigators probe death of woman in Brooklyn hospital - Newsday

BY ANTHONY M. DESTEFANO - anthony.destefano@newsday.com

Federal and city investigators are considering possible criminal charges after a patient at Kings County Hospital Center was left to die last month unattended on the floor of a psychiatric emergency ward, officials said yesterday.Newsday.com

The death of the 49-year-old Jamaican woman on June 19 was graphically revealed yesterday in a shocking surveillance video that showed her writhing on the floor as other psychiatric patients and hospital staffers seemed to ignore her.

City officials turned over the video to attorneys for the New York Civil Liberties Union and mental health advocates in connection with a civil-rights lawsuit filed a year ago attacking the way Kings County treated psychiatric patients. The suit is expected to result today in a preliminary injunction that directs the city, which runs Kings County, to beef up staffing and procedures at the psychiatric emergency room.

A law enforcement official, who asked not to be named, identified the dead woman as Esman Green. Her body was taken to the morgue, where it remained until city officials decided to pay the cost of the funeral and shipment of her remains back to Jamaica, said Donna Lieberman, head of the NYCLU.

"The reason why this woman died the way she did was that there is a culture of indifference that permeates every aspect of KCHC psychiatric care, nothing short of that," said Robert Cohen, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis Llp, which with NYCLU brought the lawsuit.

Hospital records stated the patient was awake and going to the bathroom when the video showed she was facedown on the floor, Lieberman said.

"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 statement yesterday.

Health and Hospitals Corp. officials suspended and fired hospital staffers involved.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's office, said a criminal civil rights investigation into KCHC, which had started earlier based on other complaints, will now also look at the death. A spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office said any suspected criminality referred to it by the Department of Investigation would be prosecuted. A DOI spokeswoman said the agency was "aware" of the incident.