State closes ward at Cherry Hospital

RALEIGH -- The state is closing an adult admissions ward at Cherry Hospital, a state psychiatric facility in Goldsboro, where a dying man was ignored by nursing staff.

The head of the state Department of Health and Human Services said the 16 staffers on duty at the time of the death have been removed from direct patient care duties and given other assignments for a period of at least 60 days.

One nurse had resigned in the wake of the death, DHHS Secretary Dempsey Benton said at a media conference Friday.

Those involved in the incident who remain on the hospital staff will receive more training until the hospital director decides they are ready to resume caring for patients under the supervision of a training director, Benton said.

Steven Sabock, 50, died at the mental hospital on April 29, after sitting in a chair for more than 22 hours without food or help using the bathroom. Hospital staff members were captured by security video playing cards and watching television in the room where Sabock sat.

"On behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services and myself personally, we deeply regret that Mr. Sabock died, and that it occurred while a patient at Cherry Hospital," Benton said. "The Department finds the circumstances related to this tragic death at Cherry Hospital completely unacceptable."

Federal officials threatened to cut off the hospital from Medicaid and Medicare funds after Sabock's death and a separate April incident where a staff psychiatrist hit a developmentally disabled teenager.

The closure reduces the admissions section from 90 beds to 67 in the three wards that will remain open. The total bed capacity of the hospital will drop from 274 to 251. Patients were transferred to Dorothea Dix Hospital in Raleigh and Central Regional Hospital in Butner.

Benton said Jack St. Clair, the director at Cherry, has been working to improve care at the hospital, which has had several patient beatings and questionable deaths in the last two years. Though he insisted St. Clair was up to the task of fixing the problems occurring on his watch, Benton said he was not satisfied with the level of follow-up after Sabock's death, including the hospital's internal investigation and the level of actions taken against those who had been responsible for Sabock's care.

Benton said he was not aware of Sabock's death until federal officials raised questions. The secretary said he has not watched the video footage showing his department's employees ignoring the ailing patient.

Though Benton said that two Cherry employees falsified medical records in an attempt to cover up deficiencies in Sabock's care, Benton said it was up to hospital director St. Clair, not him, to decide whether those employees should be fired.

Departmental lawyers had determined no criminal law was broken when the records were falsified, Benton said.

The hospital's standards manager, who is responsible for internal investigation of patient incidents and developing plans of correction, has been reassigned, Benton said.

The ward closure means the hospital will have two registered nurses on the remaining three wards for each shift. Benton said that DHHS will look into whether all or part of the closed ward can be re-opened if it can meet the two-nurse requirement.

Benton visibly perspired as he faced reporters' questions Friday, repeatedly reaching into his pocket for a green bandana and dabbing his face. The secretary, appointed by Gov. Mike Easley in 2007, pledged publicly in January and again in March that he would fix the state's troubled mental health system by the end of the governor's term.

He also pledged to increase transparency in the state hospital system and ensure that the circumstances of deaths in the facilities were accurately reported to the medical examiner. Benton agreed Friday that Sabock's death showed those goals had not yet been achieved.

Asked to rate his own performance, Benton said he thought he was doing a good job and said "significant progress" was being made under his leadership.