The evidence displayed in the lawsuit shows that Ms. Green’s death is
not solely the fault of the hospital employees who watched her die.
The conditions in the hospital, particularly the psychiatric ward, and
the treatment of the patients are the responsibility of the city agency
that runs the hospital. It was not until over one year into the
litigation, and after Ms. Green’s death, that the city finally agreed
to adopt a series of basic stop-gap measures, including:
* That every patient be checked every 15 minutes.
* That there be no more than 25 patients at any time in the psychiatric emergency ward.
* That detailed records on the ward be turned over every week to the advocates involved in the lawsuit.
* And that the advocates be active participants in the search for a
new deputy executive director and emergency room director for Kings
County Hospital’s Behavioral Health department.
It is shocking that it took a lawsuit and the very public death of a
woman to get New York City to agree to such basic levels of care for
mental health patients. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the
NYCLU, said:
What’s happening in Kings County Hospital is an affront to human
dignity…In 2008 in New York City, nobody should be subjected to this
kind of treatment. It should not take the death of a patient to get the
city to make changes that everyone knows are long overdue.
What is even more distressing about Ms. Green’s death and the
allegations of gross negligence of patients at Kings County Hospital is
that many residents in Central Brooklyn do not have access to other
hospitals. This is mainly due to the fact that the predominantly
black, low-income areas of Central Brooklyn, particularly the
neighborhoods Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brownsville, Canarsie, Crown Heights,
East New York, and Flatbush have seen numerous hospital closures in the
last few years.
The Opportunity Agenda has documented these hospital closures on its website Health Care That Works. Since
1985, Central Brooklyn has seen five local hospitals close their
doors. Because of these closures, people in these minority communities have been forced to rely on Kings County Hospital even more. Local
residents also begged the city to keep local clinics open – their
requests can be seen in a video on The Opportunity Agenda’s YouTube channel. At the same time all of these facilities were
closing, allegations of mistreatment at Kings County were surfacing.
The fact that people of color have inferior access to health care in
New York contributes greatly to the health disparities in the
city. The Opportunity Agenda report Dangerous and Unlawful: Why Our Health Care System Is Failing New Yorkers and How to Fix It documents how areas with high concentrations of African Americans,
Hispanics and Asian Americans are more likely to have shortages of
primary care physicians than predominantly white communities are. The
distribution of hospitals and other health care services has a
significant discriminatory effect on these communities of color – their
health care access is simply inadequate.
Ms. Green’s death should do more than signify the need for improvement
of existing hospitals like Kings County. It should also remind us that
many people in New York, and across the country, lack basic primary
care and access to emergency services. Changing this reality needs to
be a part of health care reform discussions. If it isn’t, we will
continue to see needless deaths like Ms. Green’s occur.
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