CoachViperMaster1028 Passage: The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room Esmin Green fell…Passage: The Woman Who Died in the Waiting Room
Esmin Green fell out of her chair in the waiting room of Brooklyn’s largest psychiatric hospital nearly an hour before anyone realized she was in trouble. For 20 minutes, she writhed and twisted between two chairs under the watchful eye of a security camera whose footage would later be broadcast across the country, spurring a public outcry. Two security guards and two other staff members passed through the room and glanced at the 49-year-old woman, without bothering to check her vital signs or help her up. Nearly 40 minutes after she stopped moving, a nurse walked over and lightly kicked her. By then, she was already dead. The city’s medical examiner cited blood clots in her legs as the official cause.
As disturbing as the circumstances of Esmin Green’s death were, they should not have come as a surprise. Public hospitals across the country have struggled to provide acute psychiatric care to the poor and uninsured since the early 1960s, when large mental hospitals began closing their doors en masse. Rather than lock them away in cold, uncaring institutions, the thinking went, the mentally ill should be offered a place in society. But with insufficient outpatient services and a dearth of community-based support, the least fortunate of them have ended up in already overtaxed emergency rooms. They are poor, the uninsured and the undocumented. Many of them suffer from chronic conditions that could potentially be treated with medication and regular counseling, luxuries most of them cannot afford. With just 50,000 inpatient psychiatric beds for tens of millions of people across the country, the mentally ill typically wait twice as long for treatment as other patient populations do. “It’s like landing airplanes at JFK airport, “says Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “There is just no place for them to go.”
Choose only the statements the author has said in the passage. They are paraphrased sure identify the correct ones.
QUESTION 1 Pick from the following the statements that is the closest to the main idea of the passage:
a. It’s terrible the way Esmin Green died in the hospital and it goes to show that nobody cares anymore these days, not even in the hospital 1
b. Esmin Green’s story shows that large hospitals across the country have been having trouble treating the poor and the uninsured since the early 1960s 2
c. Esmin Green’s story shows that there have been a lot of difficulties for large public hospitals across the country to give intensive medical care to the less fortunate people since 1960s 3
d. Esmin Green’s story shows that there have been a lot of difficulties for large public hospitals across the country to give intensive mental care to the less fortunate people since 1960s 4
QUESTION 2 In the following, only one statement refers to what the author says in the passage, so pick that statement:
a. Without enough support from the community and the treatment outside of the hospital, the least fortunate of the poor, the uninsured, and the undocumented often have had to go to the emergency rooms that are already too crowded 1
b. Without taxes to support the emergency rooms, the poor the uninsured and the undocumented who cannot be treated in the community and outside of the hospital have had to go to the emergency rooms where they can’t get any care 2
c. These people are less fortunate because they have to go to the emergency rooms without the support of the tax money and they don’t have support from the community and outpatient services 3
d. You can’t overtax the emergency rooms because then the less fortunate of the people would have less than enough community support and outpatient services 4
QUESTION 3 In the following, only one statement refers to what the author says in the passage, so pick that statement:
a. Many of these poor, the uninsured and the undocumented suffer from a lack of luxury items as well as lack of medication and counseling. 1
b. Many of these poor, the uninsured and the undocumented suffer from long-term conditions that could possibly be treated with medicines and the help from counselors, but they can’t afford these and that’s why they ended up in crowded emergency rooms. 2
c. Many of these poor, the uninsured and the undocumented suffer from long-term mental conditions, but they cannot afford to be treated with medication and regular counseling because they bought other luxury items and as a result they just ran out of money.
d. Many of these poor, the uninsured and the undocumented suffer from these long-term conditions and cannot afford medication, counselling as well as other luxury items.
QUESTION 4 In the following, only one statement refers to what the author says in the passage, so pick that statement:
a. When large hospitals that treat mental patients started to close doors because of the big mess they got into, people think these least fortunate should go out to the society because hospitals were such cold and messy places that kept them away from community support 1
b. People who need to be treated mentally have to wait a lot longer than other patients because there is a severe shortage of beds for mental patients in the hospital 2
c. Patients sometimes take planes to go to the hospital, but after they landed, they have no place to go 3
d. At JFK, there are planes that carry patients, but after landing, they have no place to go 4Arts & HumanitiesEnglish
