The headline of this ABC News report says it all: “Ignored Psych Patient Dies on Hospital Floor.” Most people go to the hospital to get help, not to be allowed to fall on the floor and left to die … despite having security guards — and even a doctor! — notice them before walking away!

Note that this poor woman had been sitting in that waiting room — it wasn’t even a treatment room! — for some 24 hours by the time she fell on the floor. That’s right, they had been ignoring her for an entire day! (A video report from NBC’s Today is embedded below; the raw video is available from ABC News.)
New York Hospital patient ignored to death! - Videos are here

I have no doubt that everyone involved in this case chose to ignore her, because she was a “psych patient” who’d been reported as having been “agitated,” and whom they simply did not wish to deal with.

They got their wish — she will, in fact, never bother them again — but hopefully the authorities will not let go and will remind them of it as much as possible.

The treatment of the mentally ill in the US, especially in urban hospitals like Kings County Hospital but also in others around the country, is simply dreadful. Psych patients are considered burdens rather than people with ailments who need help, real help.

We simply must stop viewing psychiatric ailments as “eccentricity” or as “bothersome.” We have seen in this case (and likely in others that haven’t happened to be so well documented) that ignoring psych patients kills them. We can no longer afford the luxury of being casual about mental illness, or denying its existence (as the anti-psychiatry movement does).

Folks, do not forget poor Esmin Green, who died alone and ignored on the floor of a hospital in plain view of many people. Do not let it happen again, to anyone, ever. Stop treating the mentally ill as disposable. It must STOP, and it must stop NOW!