Unattended Mental Patient Dies On A Wheelchair

A shameful case of ignorance was displayed at a North Carolina Hospital when a psychiatric patient died in a wheelchair because nurses refused to attend to him

Steven Sabock, 50, was left in the dayroom at Cherry Hospital. For 22 hours, he stayed without food or bathroom assistance. He died later that day because of a heart problem.

The hospital's security video recorded Sabock's care from April 28, when he choked on his medicine while a nurse stood by without helping him. Throughout his day, he was without food until his death from a heart problem. Health care technicians are seen on the recording watching television through the night, playing cards, and talking on a cell phone while they were in the room with Sabock.

Federal officials have threatened to cut off funding because of Sabock's death.

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

The state has also sent a team to the hospital at Goldsboro to help authorities draft new procedures to ensure better patient care.

Tom Lawrence of the Department of Health and Human Services stated that though the case of Sabock’s death was an isolated one, officials are still concerned.

Lawrence quoted, "It's not the kind of thing that we in our wildest dreams would expect to happen in our hospitals -- in our wildest nightmares, I guess."

The state team shall also decide if necessary investigation leads to any disciplinary actions against the nurses.

The state has until August 23 to file a report with the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services detailing what changes officials are being made. If the center rejects the report, federal funds will be cut off beginning September 1.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton says that nurses may be reassigned to provide more patient supervision.

He quoted,” Disciplinary actions have been taken to emphasize that attentive, quality patient care is the essential responsibility for every employee in the hospital and that this behavior uncovered by the CMS surveyors is absolutely unacceptable.”

He also emphasized that officials are trying to figure out a way to manage staff resources better.

This is not the only incidence of hospital ignorance that has come to light. In another case, federal inspectors say a doctor hit a teenage patient.

Recently, a patient in New York died after she waited in a hospital's mental ward waiting area for nearly 24 hours. Security video showed her writhing on the floor. It was nearly an hour before someone else flagged down a staff member who got help for the unresponsive woman.