Funeral for Woman Who Died in Brooklyn Hospital

Mourners crowded the Jesus Is Lord Sanctuary in Canarsie on Sunday to pay their respects to Esmin Elizabeth Green who died on June 19 after spending almost 24 hours in the emergency room of Kings County Hospital.

The 49-year-old Jamaican immigrant was admitted to the psychiatric ward of the hospital on June 18, reports the New York Times. After collapsing 24 hours later, Green was ignored by the hospital staff as she lay on the hospital floor. She died soon after.

Three hospital workers were fired and three others suspended after the lack of attention paid to Green's condition.

Green left Jamaica in the '90s to come to New York for a job to support her six children at home. Green recently lost her job as a caregiver for the elderly and at a children's daycare center. She suffered from severe depression and would often fall into psychological darkness for weeks at a time.

"Whenever she was getting sick, she would not eat, she would walk back and forth on the street, or stay in her room," said Marlene Sterling, the woman who rented a room to Green for three years.

Working in New York allowed Green to send home money and groceries to her children in Jamaica. After losing her job, she could no longer do so and fell into a depressive state.

Along with the mourning of the woman's death comes the criticism of the hospital's inability to care for its patients. Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union spoke against the hospital after filing a federal lawsuit claiming systematic neglect.

"She went to the hospital for care and met a system pervaded by indifference, disdain and abuse," Lieberman said.

The consul general of Jamaica in New York hopes that Green will not have died in vain if changes are brought about in public hospitals in caring for the poor.

Green's body will be returned to Jamaica to be buried.