Background: The Psychiatric Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C. (Google Maps). Inset: U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announcing the indictment on (Jeanine Pirro/Facebook).
Three psychiatric employees in Washington, D.C., face charges after they allegedly let a vulnerable patient die on his mattress without doing anything to help.
Nelson Kuma, 37, Richard Hounnou, 45, and Norma Munoz-Bent, 68, have been indicted on charges of criminal negligence in the death of a 58-year-old man referred to as "G.W.," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia announced. They were all arraigned on Tuesday after a grand jury returned the indictment on March 31.
The case stretches back to April 24, 2020, at the Psychiatric Institute of Washington in Washington, D.C., where Kuma and Hounnou worked as psychiatric counselors and Munoz-Bent was employed as a registered nurse. G.W. "had an emergency event" and had to be resuscitated, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said while announcing the indictment.
"As a result of his being at this facility, he was one of those patients who was on what is called one-to-one care, which means that someone is supposed to be caring for him, watching for him, and every 15 minutes, someone is supposed to be doing a health check," Pirro said in the news conference streamed by area CBS affiliate WUSA.
Two days later, at 12:38 p.m., G.W. was in a room when it "appears that he is starting to have labored breathing," Pirro says, adding that video captured the entire incident. "He is on a mattress on the floor. He has no clothes on."
A hospital tech reportedly came into the room and noted that the patient was "not breathing properly." However, according to Pirro, "he does nothing for four minutes."
"A second tech enters the room; they fist bump each other, and for seven minutes, they have a very animated conversation," she added. "It's as though the patient on the floor, who was suffering from labored breathing, is not even there."
About 10 minutes after the patient's apparent labored breathing began, the registered nurse walks in. She "stares at the patient, she puts her hands on her hips," but she doesn't touch him before leaving the room a minute later.
The staff members ended up checking the patient's blood but improperly, the U.S. attorney alleges. For at least 21 minutes, the patient reportedly "did not receive lifesaving measures," and by the time proper efforts were taken, "it was too late."
He died inside the hospital. It is unclear why the indictment took nearly six years to be brought against the defendants.
"Here's the bottom line," Pirro stated. "This trio did nothing to help this patient. They didn't call a code blue, they didn't check his pulse, they didn't attempt CPR. They didn't initiate resuscitation efforts. They did nothing. Instead, they chatted, they walked around, they didn't touch him while he lay on a mattress, dying."
A "code blue" announcement at a hospital is widely understood to mean a patient is experiencing an emergency that needs immediate medical attention.
The case was investigated by Disability Rights D.C., which Pirro thanked during her news conference. The organization said it "remain[s] concerned about patient safety and adequate psychiatric treatment at Psychiatric Institute of Washington and continue[s] to monitor the facility," per Washington, D.C., NBC affiliate WRC.
The Psychiatric Institute of Washington says on its website that it "is a 130-bed facility with inpatient, intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization programs" offering "psychiatric assessments and comprehensive behavioral healthcare to children, adolescents and adults who are experiencing mental health and substance abuse issues."
G.W.'s family has reportedly filed a lawsuit in his death.
After they were arraigned on Tuesday, Kuma, Hounnou, and Munoz-Bent were released pending trial. They are set to return to court on May 29.