Sunday, 31 August 2008

N.C. man waits 22 hours at hospital, dies

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without alimentation him or helping him use the bathroom, aforementioned federal officials who receive threatened to cut off the facility's funding.

The united States Department of State sent a team Tuesday to serve Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft newfangled procedures to ensure patients receive proper care.


An investigator's report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he choked on medicament and was left posing in a chair for close to a day at the facility almost 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.


Federal officials have threatened to cut turned funding because of Sabock's death and a report that a physician punched a patient after the teen spot the doctor.


Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Tom Lawrence said the state team also crataegus laevigata investigate what, if any, disciplinary action at law should be taken next Sabock's death.


Lawrence said the Sabock incident is isolated but that officials ar concerned.


"It's not the kind of thing that we in our wildest dreams would wait to befall in our hospitals � in our wildest nightmares, I guess," Lawrence said.


Sabock's father, Nicholas, declined remark when reached by telephone Tuesday even. A man who answered the earphone listed for Susan Sabock, Steven's wife, hung up without commenting.


The investigation released Monday aforementioned Sabock died in April after Cherry Hospital nurses left him unattended in a chair and did not give him or help him to the bathroom.


The report said Sabock sat, unattended, in the room for four work shifts. The report besides found that Sabock, formerly of Roanoke Rapids, ate nothing the day he died and had little food in the iII days preceding his death.


The state has until Aug. 23 to file a report with the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services particularization what changes officials ar making, Lawrence said.


If the center rejects the study, federal pecuniary resource will be cut off beginning Sept. 1, Lawrence said.


Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton said in a statement that nurses crataegus oxycantha be reassigned to provide more affected role supervision. Officials are as well considering better ways to manage staff resources, he said.


A affected role in New York died in June after she waited in a hospital's mental hospital ward waiting area for nearly 24 hours. Security picture showed her writhing on the floor. It was nearly an hour in front someone else flagged down a staff member world Health Organization got help for the unresponsive woman.




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