RIP Esmin Green

So, as I was posting the last blog I carefully thought out, someone named Esmin Green had since passed while waiting for a treatment at a NY psych hospital. She had been brought in against her will the day before for psychosis and agitation. Ms Green sat in the waiting room of the psych hospital for over a day, and collapsed, ending her stay there, at around 5.30a. The thing that bothers me is that all the patients sitting in the waiting room, all the security guards watching the cameras and all the doctors and nurses failed to do anything about her suffering. Ms Green collapsed onto the floor and was stared at and ultimately ignored by other waiting patients. The security guards must have thought she was simply sleeping on the floor, so they did nothing. Finally, after she writhed around for 5 minutes, probably screaming out or crying in pain, she breathed her last breath and died there on the cold, linoleum floor at a hospital that she was involuntarily brought to. Not cool. This calls for reform. Doctors (and I have come across this lately) could give a shit about those of us who suffer from mental illness. It's like we don't matter to them and we'll basically pay whatever they want for them to toy with us and give us diagnoses that drive us even more crazy. I just hope someone with some power sees this video and pushes hospitals to reform their way of thinking about how they treat their patients. No one deserves to die. Especially in a place that is supposed to be safe and life-saving.



http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/waiting.room.death/index.html