By Spencer Hunt and Debra Jasper
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Two days after a chest X-ray revealed pneumonia, Mark Leaseburge started struggling to breathe.
His breathing was labored in the morning and got worse throughout the day. At 7:10 p.m., workers at Weber Health Care Center in Wellington called for a doctor.
Mr. Leaseburge was put on a ventilator at a hospital, where he died more than a month later, on April 12, 1998.
No autopsy was done. The cause of death was listed as "pneumonia" in state Health Department records.
The Health Department cited Mr. Leaseburge's death in January 1999 when it threatened to decertify Weber Health Care. The state faulted the center for not quickly alerting a doctor or charting what happened to the 41-year-old man.
"There was no clear picture of what happened before, during and after" the emergency, the department report states.
The state dropped its threat to decertify Weber after managers trained employees to keep more complete documents and to notify doctors in a more timely manner.
Weber Health Care Center officials won't comment.
"As far as I knew, he was getting as good a care at Weber as he got anywhere else," says Mr. Leaseburge's mother, Shirley Leaseburge of Port Orange, Fla.
She says her son developed seizures at a very early age and rarely spoke as an adult. "He made very little sound, even when he was hurt or something was wrong."
