The Moderate Voice - Latest Comments in Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

Re: Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

StockBoySF — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 15:28:37 -0000

Joe, thanks for the post. I don't know whether or not it is over-generalizing, but given that people's lives are at stake here this should be a wake up call for ALL hospitals, clinics, etc. to look at their policies and emphasize to their employees the reason why they are there: to help save lives. That includes guards, who are there to protect the people. This should be done everywhere, including first rate institutions. If the administration can't tell their employees that the health of their patients is their primary concern, then the administration should be fired and charges brought against them.

One of my pet peeves is when people say, "It's too bad but it's a one time thing. There's no reason to blow it out of proportion." No one can say that unless they dig deep and look at problems. I'm sure one of the reasons the lawsuit that was filed against the hospital a year hadn't received more attention is that no one thought there was much merit to it. How often do we read stories (not just about hospitals, but child abuse, etc.) in the newspaper about "warning signs" that someone should have paid attention to... No one did pay attention until someone was hurt or died. And then we end up with shocking stories like this one.

The security guard who rolled his chair around the corner to just take a peek at her clearly was not doing his job.

Why does it take death to get people to wake up and do their jobs?

Re: Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

runasim — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:36:36 -0000

From what I've seen in hospitals, I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often.

I think it is an important symptom of the American way of life, but because it's not nice to know, it will be denied or ignored. Sooner or later, someone will say it's unpatriotic to talk about it.

Evidence has been collected about how passersby react to someone in distress, (an indy film + a documentray), and the evidence is not pretty.
Additional evidence has come from journalists who have gone under cover to live the life of the homeless or a poor minority member.
I also recall the dumping of patients from out-of-town hospitals on LA streets.

We also have an 'it's their own fault' mentality in full bloom in some quarters, to hide the obvious from view.

Re: Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

DLS — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 12:46:24 -0000

It's a systemic crisis throughout the nation, and IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!

Re: Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

brad_sk — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:35:00 -0000

>From this incident all that can be concluded at this point is that staff, both professional and otherwise, at the specific unit at which this incident took place have a serious problem

You are right....those third class staff at the hospital should be executed for murder. Of course an investigation has to be made to find out who's responsible at higher level of the organization too. Usually the lowest level staff are just ordered to do certain things by their boss.

Re: Ignored Psychiatric Patient Dies On Floor Of Hospital Waiting Room

Dave_Schuler — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:29:56 -0000

Joe, I think you're over-generalizing. From this incident all that can be concluded at this point is that staff, both professional and otherwise, at the specific unit at which this incident took place have a serious problem. From the two incidents you pointed to one might suspect that there's a serious problem in New York but there's too much time and space between the two incidents to be too confident about our conclusions.

This is really awful. It shouldn't have happened. I hope that steps are taken among the appropriate authorities so that it doesn't happen again and I hope that isn't they don't just fire a couple of low level hospital workers and call the problem solved.

But I also think we should avoid over-generalizing.