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National News: L.A. DA Says High-Profile Hospital Death Is No Crime; Famed Death-Row Inmate Wants Another Trial; Affirmative Action Haters Want The Program Banned
July 9th, 2008Like the recent N.Y. case, Edith Rodriguez was ignored as she yelled in pain on the floor
Prosecutors in Los Angeles will not lodge criminal charges against workers at a predominantly Black hospital where a woman died screaming in pain as staff ignored her, The Associated Press reported. City officials said in a report released Tuesday that there was too little evidence to charge a nurse and other staff at the former Martin Luther King, Jr.-Drew Medical Center in the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez, a 43-year-old mother of three, according to AP. Rodriguez died of a ruptured bowel on May 9, 2007. Los Angeles Police took her to the emergency room after finding her yelling for help in front of the hospital. She had been released from the emergency room just three hours before, given a prescription and told to see a doctor. Upon her return visit, a nurse told her, “…[T]here’s nothing we can do.” Rodriguez fell on the floor and writhed in pain for 45 minutes as hospital workers toiled at their desks and patients looked on. The case is eerily similar to a June 19 case at the Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, where 49-year-old Esmin Green died after falling to the floor and remaining there for about an hour as staff ignored her. In that case, Green’s family filed a $25 million lawsuit this week.
Famed death-row inmate wants another trial
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the journalist and former Black Panther member who is in prison for killing a Philadelphia police officer 27 years ago, is asking for a new trial. His attorneys argue that the federal appeals court that denied him a new trial in the killing of Officer Daniel Faulkner should have pondered the question of whether prosecutors deliberately denied Blacks the right to serve on the jury, which violates a later Supreme Court ruling. Robert R. Bryan, who represents Abu-Jamal, and Widener University law Professor Judith Ritter, asked the three-judge panel and the full Third Circuit court to review the case again. Convicted in 1982, the 54-year-old Abu-Jamal gained legendary status while on Pennsylvania’s death row. He is the author of several books, and his taped commentaries are aired on radio shows nationwide. He has maintained his innocence from the beginning.
Affirmative action haters want the program banned
Despite recent failures to get anti-affirmative action measures on ballots in Missouri and Oklahoma, supporters of such initiatives say they’ll reap success in Nebraska and Arizona this time around. They contend that they’ve gathered the necessary signatures, unlike in Missouri and Oklahoma. But opponents of efforts to ban affirmative action aren’t sitting still while the program they say is a needed to ensure equal opportunity for qualified minorities is held back by race. They are going after Arizona signature-gatherers in a lawsuit, alleging that they are using deceptive means to trick supporters of affirmative action into signing their petitions. They point to the name of the anti-affirmative action measure as an example – the American Civil Rights Initiative. Petitioners traditionally tell unsuspecting individuals that they are trying to ensure equal opportunity in hiring, knowing full well that potential signers will be duped into believing that they helping ensure the survival of affirmative action, critics contend. “There’s a significant difference between submitted signatures and valid signatures,” David Kramer, head of Nebraskans United, which opposes the measure, told The Associated Press. “We’ll wait to see the outcome of that process before litigation.” If the anti-affirmative action forces are successful, a constitutional amendment would make it illegal for public entities to give preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.
I can not believe that this so-called hospital in Los Angeles would ignore that woman like that. She is outside on the ground screaming for help and they are ignoring her? Wow! Nurses and workers like this should be banned from ever working in an emergency establishment like this because they are too cold-hearted to care. Its just a shame…the hospital should be sued. I don’t care IF she had just been released with a prescription 5 minutes prior to her bowel rupturing…she should have been re-admitted and even IF she DIDN’T have insurance. Although it wasn’t mentioned in the story…it sounds like a case of a patient not having insurance so she was denied services…”oh, ur bowel is ruptured…die in pain bcoz u can’t afford painkillers”. I just don’t know what the world is coming to! I hope that those nurses and possibly doctors as well that ignored her, will one day grow a concience and apologize to her family.
I don’t think the hospital check the woman out thoroughly and I find them at fault. Martin Luther medical center has always been one of the hospital in the Los Angeles county to avoid. She would have been going to the county hospital.
I worked in the emergency room for awhile and I can relate to this case so well. No, I didn’t see someone die but I most definitly can relate to cold-hearted nurses as well as some doctors who seem to forget they are not exempt from having sickness come upon them. I’ve seen patients mishandled and mistreated as if it was some kind of game. This is just an exposure of the things that happen in the medical field each and every day! Although there are things many think they are getting away with, one day, even if they don’t apoligize to this family, they will have to give an account for their actions!
Man, that hospital wouldn’t even be standing anymore if that was me screaming to death on the floor. Soon as my family would have found out, they would have burned that place to the ground…….
I live here in the LA area, and that hospital has a nickname of “Killer King Hospital”. What a shame it is.
No fault huh? Wow. That’s all that can be said for the complete and utter disregard for a human life like that. She is a mother, a daughter, perhaps a wife, a sister to someone. How can the hospital staff not be found at fault in some form of fashion for IGNORING a woman writhing in pain on the hospital floor? To check on her to see at least what is wrong is one thing, but to ignore someone to the point of death is just sickening. I don’t wish bad upon anyone, but let that have been one of their family members. God sees all and knows all and they surely wouldn’t want to feel the wrath of HIM. This is a sad, sad case. I really do hope that justice will be served at least for the children’s sake. She didn’t ask to have a ruptured bowel. She didn’t ask to be in pain. Heck, I’m sure she didn’t ask to be in the hospital in the first place, but since she was there, she should have gotten the treatment she deserved. She was a human with feelings like everyone else. She deserved to be treated as a patient, not as some thrown away object. I can’t stand reading about stuff like this. It’s just sickening and sad.
Shameful the way humans treat each other…even in the so-called “care-giving” professions. Absolutely shameful!!
of course the hospital incident (and ones like them) was a crime!…crime to humanity!….it’s too bad if there is not a law OR if there is a law, a loophole, something! ….that protects citizens from dying in vain in a protected, safe, healthcare facility ..(we as a community should feel AND be safe in a healthcare facility with so-called healthcare professionals all around!!! )where was the heart in all of this!!??? (yeah…..I know…..busy, understaffed, overcrowded…..I say, NO EXCUSES, NO EXCSUES, NO EXCUSES….period!)
What Do You Say!?
This just goes to show that the oath that doctors take means nothing! They are only concerned with how much money they can get. Those who don’t have insurance are left to die in the street or in this case the waiting room. How could anyone sit and watch someone die like this. The word compassion should be scratched out of all medical books and replaced with greed. I know that my soul would not allow me to sit by and watch someone die.. even if I didn’t know the. I wonder how their souls feel. We have the same problem in East St. Louis, IL. No one has died yet, but they are pressing their luck.
No one is shocked that there is a push to eliminate affirmative action. After the democratic primary process it became obvious that this nation still struggles with the issue of race. There has been factions in this country that for whatever reason, believe that America is for white people. They have no patience, understanding or tolerance for anything other than “white.” They believe that they are the only “real” Americans here and that everyone else is a foreigner or immigrant.
The reality is that the only “true” Americans are the Native Americans. Everyone, including white folks are immigrants. The fact that they are pushing this legislation is proof that certain people don’t desire to share the American Dream with anyone but other white people. They know that people of color won’t be treated fairly if there’s no law in place to force them to do the right thing. Even with the laws racist employers violate the rights of legal citizens all the time. The courts are full of cases where qualified people of color have been denied employment and/or promotion based solely on their race or gender. The recent primary exposed both the racism and sexism that still exist in OUR country.
For them to claim that the current laws discriminates against white people demonstrates their lack of understanding of the condition that created the need for affirmative action. No matter what white people say in public when the cameras are on, they will not and do not play fair when they think the cameras are off. Hatred and prejudice are a heart condition. That’s why its hard for whites to understand it and why they continue to live in denial. They don’t get the fact that they have been socialized by a nation that still practices racist policies and behaviors.
Affirmative Action is not in place to change white folks. Only God can deal with the hearts of men/women. Its there to insure that personal hatred and prejudice will not legally be practiced in the work place. Plain and simple.
They can continue to hate if they desire. That’s their right. What they can’t do is implement that hatred into their hiring and promotion practices.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said something that was profound and prophetic; “People change laws, but laws don’t change people.”