In June DN brought you coverage of the investigation in to the death of Esmin Green, a patient at a mental health facility in New York. Unfortunately, another case with somewhat similar circumstances has turned up in Goldsboro North Carolina. This incident took place in April of this year, about a month prior to Green's death.

Nurses at North Carolina's mental hospital in Goldsboro walked past a patient sitting in a chair for more than 22 hours without giving him food or helping him to the bathroom before he died, according to an investigative report released Monday.

The hospital's treatment of Steven H. Sabock, 50, who was found lifeless after a day without food, is one reason federal officials told state officials last week that they may stop sending federal money to Cherry Hospital, one of the state's four psychiatric hospitals.

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, and through his day without food until his death from a heart problem. Health care technicians, according to the report, 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.

Technicians could not get Sabock to walk back to his bed after his time sitting, so they stood him up, pushed a chair under him and slid Sabock down the hall toward his bedroom. The video showed a cart of emergency equipment being pushed down the hall about five minutes later.

According to the investigators' report, Sabock sat in a busy part of the hospital, called the day room, through four work shifts.

Sabock, who used to live in Roanoke Rapids in northeastern North Carolina, ate nothing the day he died, and very little during the three days prior to his death on April 29, according to the report. Investigators found no evidence that "the nursing staff had evaluated the patient's nutrition. The review revealed no nutritional consult was requested and revealed no evidence the physician was notified about the inadequate nutritional intake."