The heartbreaking video of a psychiatric patient dying on the floor at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York hospital has echoed across the internet in the last 24 hours. The video shows the patient, Ms. Green, collapsing on the floor. As she collapses she is ignored. Hospital workers and security did nothing as she was lying there and eventually died.
Were these employees simply desensitized to the sight of a psychiatric patient withering on the floor? If so, we could be looking at a much larger problem not only in hospitals, but the workplace in general.
As the article in the New York Times states: “A staff member in a yellow jacket can be seen in the video prodding Ms. Green with her foot.”
We’re talking about a staff person in a health institution. Since the video surfaced, an agreement was confirmed that mandates increased monitoring of psychiatric patients. But sadly someone had to die before an alleged ongoing issue of misconduct at the institution was addressed.
One wonders… was the hospital understaffed? Were the employees, including the doctor on the unit, burned out? Or, again, were they simply desensitized? No matter the reason, the employees didn’t take a human moment to investigate until it was too late.
Health care is one of the top sectors in need of skilled workers as boomers retire and we head into a tightening job market. This was likely not the first incident of its kind and will likely not be the last. This is an issue of employee engagement, poor workplace guidelines, and inhuman behavior. All of which need to be on the top shelf for employers in any sector.
With the economic seesaw that we are enduring, companies that preemptively tackle workplace stress and lack of employee engagement now - while instilling common workplace values – will have a better chance of riding the current wave of uncertainty. Perhaps this is seemingly light talk in contrast to the deadly episode at Kings County. But pain adheres to pain. If these workers started the day with a poor attitude, overworked or understaffed they were already prepped to be laxidasical.
I don’t mean to belie or make light of the deadly consequences of what occurred at Kings County, but it’s a huge red flag that’s waving high above our edicts of moral integrity in the workplace.
