Comments on: Esmin Green

By: Christy

Christy — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 01:53:22 +0000

As I read this thread, I also found myself putting this woman’s suffering in my own context. I am a woman, I am white, and I have a sister with schizophrenia. In my perception: of the categories, I think being mentally ill is the most difficult and vulnerable. You would be surprised how many people would not want to be caught sneering at a woman or a black person on the subway — but a mentally ill person: why hold back? It’s not as if society takes care of them or even sees any need to help them. In terms of the majority of federal and state laws, if you are a family member of woman like Esmin Green, you have no right to help her. If she doesn’t want to take medication, she doesn’t have to. If she hasn’t gone to a medical doctor in twenty years, so be it. Yet strangely if she wanted to buy a handgun, it would be illegal because of her illness. She cannot be trusted with other people’s lives, but she can be with her own. How sick did Ms. Green probably have to become before anyone could legally interfere? The laws make it so that she literally had to be on the brink of death/danger to even be brought in involuntarily.

I agree that the hospital in question was unconscionable and horrifying. Yet we also must look at the laws which allow a person with a brain disorder to go not just hours, but years, without any medical attention. Regardless of her sex or her race, if she had had cancer: would she have been treated the same?

By: eds

eds — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:28:54 +0000

Ms. Green was admitted involuntarily for agitation, but if you look at the video, until her collapse she seems to be waiting fairly quietly. This suggests she was almost certainly given an antipsychotic when she arrived at the emergency room. Antipsychotics can be useful and necessary for severe mental illness, and if she really was schizophrenic (not a settled question– it’s a tricky and stigmatizing diagnosis, and one that’s more likely to be given to black people in emotional distress, such as Ms. Green, more quickly) they may have been the best course. But they’ve got a lot of dangerous side effects, such as… deep vein thrombosis (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/957182.stm). It looks to me like the “treatment” she was given, against her will, killed her.

By: Forest City Ratner covers relatives’ travel costs for funeral of Esmin Green, ignored patient who died in waiting room | Fukien

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 11:38:09 +0000

[...] position is tenable, the fact remains: the downgrading of the seriousness of mental health issues continues to lead to second citizen or less treatment and attention, whether we’re talking reproductive rights, gun rights or [...]

By: MissJ9

MissJ9 — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 15:32:56 +0000

After seeing the video for the first time on CNN, I couldn’t help it, I cried. How cold do you have to be to just walk away from another human being who is seriously in trouble? Would you even do that to a dog on the street? And this has happened how many times? I feel for this family and agree that anyone who knew something was wrong and could’ve helped this woman, but instead walked away, should be charged as criminals. She was someone’s mother, daughter, neighbor, and friend. Being ill doesn’t mean you don’t have value to someone or to the community. I feel very fortunate to have good physicians but they’re increasingly hard to find. I’ve come across some who either don’t care much and treat patients like products not people, or they’re very angry and combative and provide little help. These people, these criminals, should hope and pray that when THEIR time comes, and it will, when THEY need help, they don’t receive the same treatment(or lack thereof) that they gave to Miss Esmin.

By: Frank Behr

Frank Behr — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:05:20 +0000

This is a result of a culture nurtured by years of union protecting lazy, stupid and idifferent members and the management that does not care about anything but their own cushy jobs (not even bottom line). Go to any other department of the same hospital, nay, any NYC “union” run hospital and see the same disregrad for patients, especially poorer patients, and lazy slow moving idiots providing “service”. No surprise. It is just a tip of the iceberg.

By: Alone

Alone — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 14:09:36 +0000

I’m with Amandaw.

It is impossible to disagree that race played a role. But it’s a question of labels.

There’s a joke by comedian Greg Giraldo (from memory, don’t sue me):

“Before Katrina, I wasn’t really aware of the extent of poverty in this country. Because so often, poor people look just like black people. So they’re easy to miss.”

I’ll add: reclassify those poor black people as mental health patients, and you have just made an entire social problem disappear.

http://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2008/07/esmin_green.html

By: amandaw

amandaw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:56:22 +0000

I feel the need to emphasize that I’m not really commenting against anyone here. The one comment (#14 iirc) I referenced specifically and the rest is honestly just riffing. I’ve been reading Renee now for a couple months and was delighted to see her here… and I’ve really appreciated the comments of others. I don’t want this to come across as an affront to any specific person(s).

By: amandaw

amandaw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:00:54 +0000

People who appear to be allies can still be reinforcing the system that causes the problem in the first place. Didn’t the white feminist blogosphere learn that about the liberal d00dz this election cycle?

I don’t think there was any particular harmful intent in the comment but it was still Othering. We don’t want These People out on the street do we? We would be better off if These People weren’t mixing with the public. These People can’t advocate for themselves, you know…

That’s all I want to comment on tho’, I am not endorsing or condemning any one person’s comments in this thread. I do think her race is being ignored, as well as her class (of course these things all play into each other). People don’t see a poor black woman as trustworthy in the first place! How do you THINK it’s going to play out when you add mental illness to the mix? That’s how we get a person convulsing on the floor and the staff figuring “oh just let her work it out, maybe she’ll go away? she’s just trying to get attention, best not give any to her” and so forth.

Consider this — the easiest solution the average person can think of for the problem of mental disability in society is to create a social service to keep all these people sheltered fed and and given long term health care … guess what, folks? That’s called “institutionalization.”

You REALLY have to peel back the layers of your eyelids, and learn to think really hard about these things… because whatever your thoughts are on the matter, they’re almost guaranteed to be more of a problem than an aid. Even if you have experience in the area. Hell, especially if you do.

UHC is not the solution to this problem. Homeless shelters are not the solution to this problem. Better funded social care is not the solution to this problem. They’re in the wrong paradigm, totally wrong, because they’re still thinking of the poor, minority, mentally ill as a “problem” to be “managed”… as a bug in a computer program, to borrow the metaphor. You’re still coming at things from the POV of a person in power trying to get the disadvantaged to stop making things all uncomfortable and such. Give the infant a binkie and it’ll stop wailing. You aren’t thinking in such malicious terms, but neither is the lazy parent…

By: Renee

Renee — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:52:27 +0000

Just ignore that bigoted language or rhetoric they’re using, ignore those OTHER points in which they actively marginalize an already-marginalized group, and take it on faith…they are an ally!* Wow.

Again no one said to ignore it. When you first started to speak out about issues that disturbed you but you were not familiar with were you able to articulate your position without falling prey to language that was reductive? I doubt it. It takes time for people to learn but if the intent is to help jumping down their throat the minute they try in no way encourages them to grow as a person. Point out what they may have said that is incorrect, even provide a few links for them to follow but it is not necessary to go for the jugular. Save your anger for those bigots that truly deserve and are not even trying to advance their thinking.

What happened to Esmin Green is a tragedy and the issue of non-mentally ill people demonizing, criminalizing, othering, and otherwise stigmatizing the mentally ill is FRONT AND CENTER in what happened to her

BTW thought I should point out to you that a good deal of what happened to Esmin had to do with her race and her gender a little thing that alot of people on this thread have avoided discussing. Of course we shouldn’t deal with intersections though should we?

By: Forest City Ratner covers relatives’ travel costs for funeral of Esmin Green, patient who died in NY hospital | Writes Like She Talks

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:20:22 +0000