http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/7556020/

Quote :

"RALEIGH, N.C. — The secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says workers at a troubled state mental hospital will be retrained following an allegation of abuse that went unreported for several days. "The patient was not harmed. The issue was that they handled it improperly, so we're going to make sure that we're restructuring a whole bunch of training at Cherry Hospital," Lanier Cansler said Thursday. "It really gave us a clue to the fact that they thought they were doing it right." The intensive training will be for everyone who works at the Goldsboro facility and involve a list of prohibited actions that result in immediate termination, Cansler said. Cherry Hospital is in jeopardy of losing approximately $800,000 in federal funding following the incident last month in which a mental health technician dragged a 22-year-old male patient and covered his face with a pillow to keep him from spitting while staff tried to restrain him. Among the findings in a report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the hospital "failed to provide care in a safe setting by failing to investigate the allegation of patient abuse in a timely manner" by allowing the same staff member to continue caring for the patient for 19 days after the allegation was reported. Cansler told members of the Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Joint Legislative Oversight Committee Thursday morning that the incident went unreported, not because staff tried to hide it but because they didn't know they did anything wrong. No one will lose their job over the case, Cansler said. DHHS must now submit a plan of correction detailing the new training by May 21 to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which oversees the federal insurance plans and reimburses hospitals for treating patients under the programs. The federal agency revoked Cherry Hospital's certification in 2008, when a 50-year-old patient died after staff left him sitting unattended in a chair for nearly 24 hours. The hospital lost an estimated $8 million to $10 million in federal funding as a result. Three employees were ultimately fired, two resigned and 10 others were disciplined in that incident. Several former employees were also charged with and convicted of physically and sexually assaulting patients in other cases. Mental health advocates and state officials have blamed a lack of training and inadequate pay as contributing factors to the problems the hospital has faced. Canser said Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget for the next fiscal year provides $500,000 for additional training at state facilities. A federal match would bring the total to around $800,000."

personally i love getting spat upon, kicked, punched, groped etc

at least i havent been bitten.............yet so far ive been faster than their teeth.

and i dont even work in a mental hospital!

5/6/2010 3:53:38 PM

Shutter Island?

[Edited on May 6, 2010 at 3:56 PM. Reason : you dont work there..so you are an inmate! CHA_CHING!!!]

5/6/2010 3:55:21 PM

Quote :

"personally i love getting spat upon, kicked, punched, groped etc "

yea i mean that sucks but - these people are knowingly working in a mental institution. and that STILL doesn't make it right to hold a pillow over someone's face to prevent getting bitten/spat on/etc.

HOWEVER the revocation of funding seems kinda no child left behind ish because while they are implementing training procedures, it seems that revoking federal funding will just perpetuate the problem of substandard care.

just my 2 cents. after all i am not a healthcare professional

5/6/2010 4:54:18 PM

I think a better solution would be to fire most of the staff and use that $800,000 to raise the pay of those positions and find decent people to fill them. It's the same story everytime: the pay is low so the only people they can get are people who don't care about what they do and generally hate the patients.

5/6/2010 5:00:13 PM

right. and taking away the money only perpetuates that problem

i agree w/ you - new solution needed.

5/6/2010 5:04:26 PM

I think you forgot to put the parts I'm supposed to read in bold letters.

5/6/2010 5:17:01 PM

"RALEIGH, N.C. — The secretary of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services says workers at a troubled state mental hospital will be retrained following an allegation of abuse that went unreported for several days.

"The patient was not harmed. The issue was that they handled it improperly, so we're going to make sure that we're restructuring a whole bunch of training at Cherry Hospital," Lanier Cansler said Thursday. "It really gave us a clue to the fact that they thought they were doing it right."

The intensive training will be for everyone who works at the Goldsboro facility and involve a list of prohibited actions that result in immediate termination, Cansler said.

Cherry Hospital is in jeopardy of losing approximately $800,000 in federal funding following the incident last month in which a mental health technician dragged a 22-year-old male patient and covered his face with a pillow to keep him from spitting while staff tried to restrain him.

Among the findings in a report by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the hospital "failed to provide care in a safe setting by failing to investigate the allegation of patient abuse in a timely manner" by allowing the same staff member to continue caring for the patient for 19 days after the allegation was reported.

Cansler told members of the Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Joint Legislative Oversight Committee Thursday morning that the incident went unreported, not because staff tried to hide it but because they didn't know they did anything wrong.

No one will lose their job over the case, Cansler said.

DHHS must now submit a plan of correction detailing the new training by May 21 to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which oversees the federal insurance plans and reimburses hospitals for treating patients under the programs.

The federal agency revoked Cherry Hospital's certification in 2008, when a 50-year-old patient died after staff left him sitting unattended in a chair for nearly 24 hours. The hospital lost an estimated $8 million to $10 million in federal funding as a result.

Three employees were ultimately fired, two resigned and 10 others were disciplined in that incident. Several former employees were also charged with and convicted of physically and sexually assaulting patients in other cases.

Mental health advocates and state officials have blamed a lack of training and inadequate pay as contributing factors to the problems the hospital has faced.

Canser said Gov. Bev Perdue's proposed budget for the next fiscal year provides $500,000 for additional training at state facilities. A federal match would bring the total to around $800,000."

How's that?

5/6/2010 5:18:07 PM

I say No harm, No foul

5/6/2010 5:18:39 PM

This is why you shouldn't have Nurse Ratched training your staff.

5/6/2010 7:06:50 PM

5/6/2010 8:37:19 PM