The 49-year-old Jamaican woman, Esmin Green, had been waiting in the emergency room for nearly 24 hours when the video shows her sliding from her chair and lying face down on the floor at 5:32 a.m. on June 19. A member of hospital staff and a security can later be seen passing by without doing anything.
The staff at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn finally checked on Green after another female patient got their attention, but it was too late to revive her.
Following the incident, the hospital's director of psychiatry, head of security and the doctor on duty were fired, while a security guard and two nurses have been suspended, according to the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, which runs the hospital.
The hospital has also been accused of manipulating Green's records, claiming she was "awake, up and about" at 6 a.m. when the video showed she was on the floor. The medical chart claimed she was "sitting quietly in [the] waiting room" at 6.20 a.m. During both of those times, Green was either already dead or struggling for life.
Green was admitted to the hospital on the morning of June 18 suffering from some mental illness related to psychosis. She was left in the Emergency Room while waiting for a bed in the inpatient unit to become available.
The video was shown in court as part of an unrelated lawsuit against the hospital.
It is not the first time the hospital has been criticized for its carelessness. The hospital was sued over the psychiatric unit more than a year ago by the New York Civil Liberties Union. In May, it was targeted in a federal lawsuit by three other organizations that said the conditions in the hospital were inhumane.
