Legal discussion #2A

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St. Joseph's College New York *

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353

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Law

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Feb 20, 2024

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pdf

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Legal discussion #2A Discussion Board #2A: (5 Points) Read the Bellevue Case and answer the following questions: Based on Eric A. Johnson, Individually and as Administrator of the Estate of Kathryn Hinnant Johnson, Deceased, Appellant, v NYCHHC, Respondent, et al., Defendants, do you agree with the verdict in this case? If so, why; If not, why not? You must state specific facts and the court’s reasoning to support your answer. What could the hospital have done to prevent the incident, if anything? When reading the case Johnson vs NYC Health & Hospitals and hearing both sides. I do not agree with the verdict and the vote of the 10:2 that includes HHC security measures was reasonable. Understanding the numbers that within Bellevue at the time the 1000 public hospitals with only 4000 employees in this hospital had over 100 clinics that saw numerous patients a day. With this many patients it was only 65 to 70 security that have been working here, some in uniform or plainclothes. This wasn’t the inly incident that happened within the hospital there was a murder of a homeless man and two rapes one in 1984 and the other one in 1988. From the information given it does not look like further investigation has been done. During that time I feel security should have been upped or at least changed. Keep both patients and employees safe. After reviewing Smith's previous medical history and other inappropriate actions leading up to the incident. All of those incidents that occurred days before the murder on December 21st Smith was supposed to be discharged and was going to give him a referral to Bellevue walk-in psychiatric clinic but since he refused to leave discharged was postponed for one day. One day later the patient ingested “rat poison” and was remitted and within this time he had a tantrum. December 23rd on the day he was seen walking the ward in street clothes and later disappeared from his room for several hours in that time it was stated he used pillows to appear still in bed once word got out of his elopement it was reported right to hospital security. Same day the patient had an altercation with another patient. Security had written him up. In the meantime on that same day the physician have found him relaxing in bed, chatting with a female staff but when the physician was interviewing him, they said that he made suicide/homicide attempts to manipulate the physician into obtaining him a place to stay since he didn’t want to go to a shelter. During this time the physician did diagnose him with psychological functioning. Psychological functioning is how emotions, brain functioning, life circumstances, intellect, thinking patterns and level of consciousness affect mood and cognitive abilities. After all of this on December 25th 1988 Smith was discharged and escorted off the premises. On January 1, 1989 numerous attempts were reported of a person matching Smith's description. leading up to the Internet on January 4 on that particular day, Smith did receive treatment for lower back pain, in Bellevue emergency room, where he was examined, and no abnormalities were found, and it looks like a physician opinionated that he was procrastinating. Due to the cold weather Smith was allowed to stay in the main lobby. When, reading, and reviewing all of the information, regarding this case, I felt like with all of these attempts that Smith was making to stay within the hospital, but not retrieve and
receive treatment. There should’ve been some other ways to contain him due to him being a danger. Security measures could have been upped and reviewed prior to this incident due to the other two incidents before this and no action has been taken. I believe that they did fail to prevent this incident from happening. They should’ve taken action the first time. The verdict wasn’t a good choice in my eyes. Seeing the numbers would make you think that their security measures were reasonable but they’re dealing with mentally challenged people where they are a danger to themselves and also other staff members. Security should’ve already been tight and sufficient to protect the patient from themselves and also other staff.
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