Man dies after waiting 22 hours at hospital

[superconnected]

Source: Associated Press

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

The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new 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 medication and was left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 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 off funding because of Sabock's death and a report that a physician punched a patient after the teen bit the doctor.

Read more: http://www.komonews.com/news/national/27175864.html

[Wapsie B]

1. This was in Canada right?

:sarcasm:

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Just what I was thinking.

Must be that there socialized medicine.

[The Croquist]

44. You are right. It was socialized medicine.

It was socialized medicine in the US.

May he rest in peace.

[WriteDown]

4. Non issue.

This guy was in a hospital and still could not get care from the wealthy doctors who just couldn't be bothered.

[calimary]

15. And it's not just the doctors either. It's the health care workers farther down the

food chain who staff many of these facilities. Shitty work and OUTRAGEOUSLY shitty pay. Makes their dedication and motivation to stay on top of things go straight down the crapper. They don't give a fuck at places like these. They don't know any of the patients, don't care about them, consider them nuisances that interrupt the card game or whatever's on TV. They don't like being stuck in dead-end jobs where it's depressing and gross. And they're charged with caretaking people in whom they have no emotional investment whatsoever, they're not related, they never met any of 'em before, and couldn't care less. Most of them in shitty dead-end low-paying jobs like these are just watching the clock and counting the hours til they get to go home, hoping in the meantime they can get away with doing the least amount of actual work possible until quitting time.

I've seen this myself. It takes a VERY VERY special person to give a damn in jobs like these. It takes an EXCEPTIONAL and generous and unselfish person to care, to want to help, especially when it's day after day after day and most of these people very likely will NOT get well. Especially in elder care. The elderly infirm will not suddenly young up and be healthy again and be able to walk and go to the bathroom by themselves. It takes an EXTREMELY remarkable and special person to staff jobs like these. And that type of person is rare. Especially when you consider what they're offered in salary compared to what they're asked to do. The rare individuals who do this kind of work out of love and compassion and daily dedication are rare gems and worth their weight in diamonds and platinum - the kind of compensation they deserve and will never see in these jobs. These jobs never pay well, and in a shit-paying job, most employees are either marking time every day until they can go home, or they're busy looking for something that pays more decently. We haven't been issued hundreds of thousands of Mother Teresas. That kind of person doesn't come in bunches. Yet that's the kind of person we need staffing these facilities.

I think of the problems we had in our family especially with my dad and to a lesser extent my mother-in-law. We moved my mother-in-law into an elder care residence. Eventually, you did become aware of the complaints, the lackadaisical treatment, the not-exactly-fiery dedication, especially at night when a skeleton crew was on duty and really didn't want to be bothered. And for the shit pay - especially for THAT level of work, it's really kind of hard to blame them. The word on that place and so many others too, was all about how "it's gone downhill..." Especially if these are for-profit facilities. When it's for-profit, that's the bottom line. Not patient care and wellbeing. Because patient care and wellbeing don't fit into the priorities of for-profit - which is exclusively to maximize profit and cut costs.

My dad was a horrorshow toward the end. We struggled to find care for him because we weren't equipped to handle it ourselves and I had still-young children at home and my mother was elderly and weak and couldn't handle it by herself - as much as she insisted she could. It all came to a head that one fine day when she called me in desperation, saying - "you have to get down here right now! I can't lift your father off the toilet." It took both of us in a huge struggle to help him back to bed. He was so heavy I couldn't handle him by myself either. And then a good friend of ours told me about how her sisters took care of their mother and not one of them had had any training or knew what to do. When they'd try to lift her by the arms and torso, they couldn't. And they'd keep trying. And they started literally pulling her muscle tissue from her bones. And that's when you can't afford elder care and you have to do it yourself. And who among us is trained or equipped to deal with it?????

Plus, you need the patience of a saint. And when you're in a dead-end, lousy-paying job like there are in these facilities, and it's depressing and you hate your job, you're probably not gonna feel motivated to do your best. All you're gonna want to do is get the hell out of there.

It's just SO AWFUL. And as long as the idea is to run these like a business and make a profit, the patients will be the low ones on the totem pole. The making of profits will always be the most important priority here. Not the people involved. So both patients AND the employees get royally screwed.

It's just SO DAMNED AWFUL.

[Tace]

37. Wow -- And You Really Only Scratched The Surface...

of this very important issue.

[Taverner]

38. It's the fucking system

The whole health care system has been designed for profit

Thank everyone from Nixon on down...

[Wapsie B]

39. They've gotta make enough profit, or "excess revenue" to keep those MBA's off the streetcorner.

Priorities you know.

[joeglow3]

46. Pay for performance???

My wife is an RN. She worked at a hospital for a couple of years. She was straight out of school and a hard worker. She would bust her ass and if she was done rounding on her patients, she would help out others with their patients. It was VERY rare that she got out on time, as she would stick around to help out where needed. Well, after her first year, she got the same raise as everyone else (including a lady caught sleeping on the job in patient rooms THREE times). She lost all motivation and said it was obvious that was what happened to all the workers there. The hospital succeeded in losing her and all the other good workers to private clinics, while keeping the crappier workers.

I don't know if this is a cause, but I know it was the MAIN frustration my wife had with her employer.

[bulloney]

17. But, but the U.S. has the best health care! Waiting happens in those socialized medicine countries.

[Wapsie B]

32. My point exactly.

[tblue]

25. And the patient was Bill Gates, right?

:sarcasm:

[alstephenson]

3. U.S. Health Care System....

Pathetic. Poor man.

[Truth4Justice]

8. Happens everyday in US medical care to one extent or another.

[guitar man]

5. Thank gawd we don't have nationalized healthcare

he might have had to wait twice that long to die then..:grr:

:sarcasm:

[hedgehog]

6. But at least North Carolina doesn't have all those pesky state taxes and regulations

that hinder business. That's why all the jobs are moving from New York to North Carolina.



Note - NOT an attack on North Carolina but on those who want no regulations, low taxes and full services!

[WriteDown]

7. Still non-issue.

The real issue is how horrible doctors and medical professionals have become. I have this dream that when healthcare is finally nationalized that they cut doctors salaries to about a 1/3 of what they are now. That way only people who really care about others will get into the profession. When I was at UNC, the med school was filled with future docs that just wanted to trophy wife, big house, and fast car.

edited for spelling.

[Changenow]

9. That is the truth

all this health care information that recommends one see a doctor to discuss concerns or symptoms make me want to scream. Where are these doctors who want to discuss symptoms with patients? They don't exist.

[alstephenson]

34. Actually my SO has gotten excellent care...

and had doctors who take the time to discuss all of his concerns and symptoms and then refer him for appropriate tests. Guess what - it's the V.A. That damned socialized medicine!

Seriously, he was diagnosed with Hodgkins (no symptoms, just an excellent examination and thorough testing revealed the cancer at Stage 1) and he has received fabulous care from the many professionals there. I wish my Blue Cross/Blue Shield doctor was as thorough and caring - he acts like he just wants to get rid of me as quickly as possible.

[Changenow]

49. A lucky guy

to have access to doctors who give a damn.

Today on the radio I heard about some famous jock who had less than a week between diagnosis and death for pancreatic cancer. It was apathy that killed him.

[Wapsie B]

10. I can't disagree with you there.

I've talked to doctors themselves who've been practicing for eons and who've become dismayed at those who enter medical training for the income, and not for the love of healing the sick.

[yardwork]

29. I know a lot of wonderful healthcare workers who care very much about their patients.

There are a lot of doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who work long hours caring for the uninsured and Medicaid eligible. They don't make much money. You'd probably be surprised how little money they make.

[undeterred]

11. He wasn't even in the emergency room waiting room

He was just on the "ignore" list.

[Turbineguy]

12. The Mentally Ill

were put on "iggy" during the Reagan years.

[hedgehog]

13. I don't think he died after sitting unattended in the chair for 22 hours.

I think what actually happened was that he choked on some medication, died, and his corpse was left sitting in a chair for 22 hours!

[moc]

14. We need a "Christmas in Purgatory" for the mentally ill

http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/utils/image_wrapper.php?visual_still_id=1846&max_width=550&max_height=550&border_width=0&border_color=000000&overlay_text=&text_placement=bottom&emboss_text=1&text_justification=center&box_text=0&text_color=guess&place_text_on_image=1

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, see http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/lib/docs/1782.htm

"There is a hell on earth, and in America there is a special inferno. We were visitors there during Christmas, 1965."

From Christmas In Purgatory: A Photographic Essay On Mental Retardation by Burton Blatt and Fred Kaplan.

For the mentally ill, not much has changed in this country in four decades. :cry:

[superconnected]

20. Hospitals are doing this to anyone they can.

[bertman]

16. I'm a North Carolinian and I'm disgusted by this. But it could have happened in any/every state,

and it is.

A state mental hospital. Workers sitting a few feet away playing cards. Who's surprised? Some of the people in those "hospitals" are so fucked up you don't know if they're alive or dead ON A GOOD DAY.

Then you have "staff" (aka hospital workers) who are earning $8.50 an hour and don't know jack shit about anything medical because they couldn't finish junior high school--much less get medical training. It's a frickin' job. That's all. You know, it ain't MY JOB to figure out if that poor S.O.B is in imminent danger. I just clean up the mess. Or bring in the meals. Or whatever they TELL ME TO DO.

This is another symptom of our sick society.

Many years ago when I was in the service, two of the battalion flight surgeons were my very good friends. They were great guys and very good doctors. And, as far as I could tell, decent human beings. One day during a casual conversation I said to Doc A, "Doc, did you become a doctor because you really want to help your fellow man?" And I was very serious. Doc A said to me "HELL NO!! ARE YOU CRAZY?? I did it for the money. Do you think I'd go through all that just to help my fellow man?"

It doesn't mean a thing to me whether a doctor does it for the money or for the good of the patient or even in memory of his grandmother, or even all three or none of the above. As long as he or she is a good doctor they deserve to get paid very well for what they do. That said, it makes me sick to hear about deserving students who really want to be doctors and who have good grades but cannot get in a medical school because the med schools have quotas--meaning they can only take so many deserving (gradewise) students each year.

I know that building and financing a medical school costs astronomical amounts of money but it seems to me that it should be one of our greatest priorities.

Right up there with universal health coverage.


Now, if you REALLY want to see some sad stuff just spend some time in nursing homes. That is an experience that will change you forever.

[KamaAina]

21. It just happened last month in NYC

and in the psych ward of a full-service hospital, no less, rather than an all-psychiatric facility.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/local&id=6237821

Esmin Green, 49, had been waiting in the emergency room at the city-owned Kings County Hospital Center for nearly 24 hours when she toppled from her seat at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, falling face down on the floor.

She was dead by 6:35, when someone on the medical staff, flagged down by a person in the waiting room, finally approached, nudged Green with her foot, and gently prodded her shoulder, as if to wake her. The staffer then left and returned with someone wearing a white lab coat who examined her and summoned help.

Until the staffer's appearance, Green's collapse barely caused a ripple. Other patients waiting a few feet away didn't react. Security guards and a member of the hospital's staff appeared to notice her prone body at least three times, but made no visible attempt to see if she needed help.

:cry: :scared:

[EFerrari]

42. I drove myself to the ER one night after I'd been assaulted.

Probably had a concussion and couldn't hear out of one ear. I sat there in pain for 17 hours at San Francisco General. When they brought in a kid who was dying on a stretcher, that was it for me. I just went home and went to bed. It was simply not possible to stay in that chair in that room.

[superconnected]

18. I've always given hospitals a lot of lee-way for being a bit apathetic BUT

I'm a systems engineer, and I have been for a decade and before that at Computer tech, and I've managed to not be apathetic in my job about handling computer problems since 1991. Every time a call that a server has issues comes in, I go check. I don't play computer games as the bells are going off.

I think what those hospitals suffer from is 1 intentional lack of resources - they want to keep their cost down so they make waiting room waits attrocious so people will leave - already exposed as a true statement by investigative reporters and has been posted on this site. And 2. an atmosphere that allows for the apathy where other organizations would get rid of the people playing cards when they're supposed to be doing their job. This isn't like down time waiting for a servers backups to complete, this is like the job is to be present and take care of people and these people are in gross neglect of their job.

[superconnected]

19. And twenty two hours sitting in a chair is unexcusable, at that point they should

lose their license and the administrators should go to jail.

[KamaAina]

22. This is a state psychiatric hospital, not a full-service hospital

http://www.cherryhospital.org

Cherry Hospital is a 274-bed inpatient psychiatric hospital serving the citizens of 36 eastern North Carolina counties. We are operated by the state of North Carolina, the Department of Health and Human Services.

In other words, it's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Best practice in mental health long ago moved from such snake pits toward outpatient and community-based treatment.

[WriteDown]

26. Ugh....

Ridiculous.

[Thothmes]

31. Based on this

one may want to question the superiority of socialized medicine over other options.

[readmoreoften]

43. This is no indictment against socialized medicine. Do you see this happening in London or Paris?

A State mental hospital charity ward in a ruthlessly corporatist nation with no socialized medicine or economic equality is not "socialized medicine" it's a medieval snake pit for an unslightly and uncared-for lumpenproletariat. The snake pits still get all sorts of kickbacks from drug companies and so forth and the people in the snake pit often have little or no medical care before they are thrown away.

Socialized medicine is not state-sponsored charity with corporate contractors. It's a social contract among all members of a society to make sure the state apparatus administers equal care to all persons.

[WriteDown]

47. None of it makes any difference....

if you can't make the people working in the facility care!

[Thothmes]

51. Maybe, maybe not.

The VA system is a socialized system, look at the crap that has happened for the last 40 years in the VA medical system. The armed services medical is a completely socialied system. Most of the horror stories that happen in that system never see the light of day.

[superconnected]

35. The last one a few weeks ago - the lady that died in the emergency

room while the staff played games on computer, was in a full service hospital.

It think this is becoming a trend in medical facilities.

[kanrok]

23. What we really need is tort reform!

That'll solve the problem!

JUST KIDDING.

[baldguy]

24. Its no longer about health care workers dealing with patients.

They're factory workers dealing with cattle.

[fudge stripe cookays]

27. Poor man....

This reminds me of the assholes at the sonogram facility where my OB-GYN doctor sent me the morning I started spotting several years ago. I was about 2 months along in my pregnancy, and told them immediately upon my arrival that it appeared that I was having a miscarriage.

They were non-committal, had me fill out a form (done with great pain and writhing around in my chair). They took me back into the back and put me on a gurney in a dark corner, then pulled the curtain in front of me. They were busy, they said. No one came back to check on me, or to see how I was doing.

After awhile, the pain became so intense and stabbing that I was trying to call for help, but it felt like my innards would fall out if I yelled too loud, so only a croak was coming out. But there was NO ONE back in the area where I was. No one could hear me. I was terrified I was going to die on that gurney...if not from the pain, then from an infection that might set in.

After I'd say close to two hours, someone finally heard me crying for help and came to check on me. By the time they ran the sonogram, the fetus had dropped down so far that it didn't even show I was pregnant anymore. I cursed those people for quite awhile for making me go through that. I swore after that I would never get pregnant again.

[area51]

40. I'm so sorry, F.S.C.,

no one should have that happen to them.

[AlphaCentauri]

28. every Health Care worker should be sworn oath on a Bible

this is out of control, those republicans hate live

[Zhade]

30. Another fucking outrage!

"Greatest country on Earth" my big fat ASS.

[truthisfreedom]

33. Pretty damning about Steven, but if anybody bit me I doubt I'd have the wherewithal to control my

involuntary reaction. If he punched him say, 2-3 seconds AFTER the bite, I'd cry foul. If his fist went out to force the kid away, that's pretty hard to call anything but self-defense. Getting bit hard causes a pretty quick physical reaction in a normal human.

[freelancer3072]

36. Deju vu all over again. This kind of stuff is happening all too often. Heck, even one occurance is

too much.

[dysfunctional press]

41. how hard did the kid bite, and how hard did the dr. punch back?

just like jobs and people, not all bites and punches are created equal.

[tblue37]

45. That's two.

Remember earlier this summer when we saw a video of a woman falling to the floor and dying in a hospital waiting room, while the security guard and the nurses barely even glanced at her? Here's the tape, in case you don't remember it:

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/07/01/waiting.room.death/index.html

[Donnachaidh]

48. If the hospital is this bad, wonder what the local nursing homes are like?

Those are the dumping grounds for the problems the hospitals say they cannot handle. :eyes:

[snailly]

50. People are losing their humanity

I used to work in a nursing home. There is no way I would not have checked on someone in a chair that I kept passing in the hall. Just because someone wasn't my patient didn't mean I didn't notice them or didn't care for them. I would have stopped to make sure they were okay.

Something is really wrong with our society.