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Mental hospital fatality; patient left in chair for 22 hours

Healthcare Security Weekly, August 25, 2008

A psychiatric patient died at a North Carolina state mental hospital after workers left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, and now federal officials have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding.

The state sent a team August 19 to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care, reported the Associated Press (AP). An investigator’s report released August 18 found the 50-year-old patient died in April of a heart problem. He choked on medication while a nurse watched and did nothing to help him and was left sitting in a chair without food or water for almost a day. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away from the patient, the AP reported.

Federal officials have threatened to cut off funding to the hospital because of the patient’s death and another report that a physician punched a teen-age patient after he bit the doctor. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) surveyors uncovered the problems. The hospital has about two weeks to correct the problems cited in the report to avoid federal sanctions, according to the Raleigh News and Observer.

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