A 23-year-old woman jumped to her death in August 2018 after a hospital reportedly failed to provide her with adequate care and prematurely discharged her without giving notice to family members, the woman’s parents have alleged.
Jiawen Liu, who lived in Brooklyn, New York, was originally from China and worked as a supervisor for Chinese exchange students studying film in New York. She was reportedly spotted behaving “erratically” near the Wolcott hotel in August 2018 and was taken to Bellevue Hospital to receive psychiatric evaluation according to the New York Post.
In the legal filing against the city and the hospital, her parents have alleged that while concerned friends visited the hospital to check on Liu, they were turned away by staff members who told them to “come back in the morning” and simply leave their contact information.
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However, the hospital released Liu “without notice to any caregiver, friends or family member,” court papers have stated. Following this “premature discharge,” Liu took an Uber to the Wolcott hotel at 5:20 a.m. where she jumped from the rooftop. She was found dead just two hours after being released from the hospital, on the second-floor balcony of the hotel.
Robert Fellows, the attorney representing Liu’s parents stated, “This all could have been avoided if they cared. They didn’t care. All they had to do was admit this woman, stabilize her and give her the psychiatric help she needed.”
“She didn’t receive care consistent with good and acceptable emergency medicine and psychiatric care,” Fellows continued. “You just don’t show someone the door. This could have been avoided by a simple phone call.”
The Manhattan Supreme Court suit is alleging that Liu’s suicide was the result of “medical negligence” on the part of the hospital. The Health and Hospitals Corporation has declined to respond to the New York Post’s request for comment, citing “patient confidentiality laws.”
Feature image via Beyond My Ken (CC BY-SA 4.0)
