Kin of Woman Left to Die in Psych Ward Get $2M

The city Wednesday announced a $2 million settlement for the family of a patient left to die inside a Brooklyn hospital where security videotape exclusively obtained by 4 New York caught staffers walking by as she lay writhing on an emergency room floor.
                 
Issuing a "full apology," the city's Health and Hospitals Corporation took "responsibility for the events leading up to the tragic death" of 49-year-old Esmine Green in June 2008 inside the psychiatric emergency room of Kings County Hospital.
                   
The city's Department of Investigation is continuing to investigate Green's death, which prompted sweeping reforms and additional staff at KCH's beleaguered psychiatric ward -- blasted in a Justice Department report as a "highly dangerous" place where staff failed to protect patients from themselves and each other.
                   
"What remains most important to this family is the criminal culpability for those responsible for what happened and those who attempted to cover it up," said Sanford Rubenstein, attorney for Green's family.
                   
Green had been waiting for almost 24 hours in KCH's emergency room, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued KCH alleging deplorable conditions at the facility. Hospital videotape showed her slump from a waiting-room chair and fall to the ground -- and showed staffers apparently ignoring her as she rolled around in what became her death throes.

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