On May 31, 1959, Holiday was taken to the Metropolitan Hospital in New York. She had liver and heart disease. Police officers were at the door to her room. She was arrested for drug possession as she lay dying and her hospital room was raided by the police. They kept guarding her at the hospital until she died from cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959. In the last years of her life, she had gradually lost her earnings, and she died with $0.70 in the bank and $750 in cash.