The federal government has pulled money from the state's psychiatric hospital in Burke County in response to a February patient death and an August patient injury.

Broughton Hospital in Morganton, one of four state mental hospitals, will not receive money for Medicare or Medicaid patients admitted after Aug. 25, reports Lynn Bonner. Federal payments for patients in the hospital before Aug. 25 will continue for one month.

The hospital receives about $1 million a month in Medicaid and Medicare payments. Its annual budget is about $60 million.

The federal government is responding to the Feb. 1 death of 27-year-old Anthony Lowery, who died at the hospital while staff members were holding him down. The News Herald in Morganton reported in July that an autopsy report found that Lowery died of asphyxiation after a hospital staff member sat on his torso for for two to three minutes.

Read more after the jump.

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