Ongoing II: Had any number of persons responsible for responding to documented evidence that I provided in terms of what I witnessed and experienced as a patient at The Arizona State Hospital met their fundamental obligations in the context, the crisis now identified in these still evolving media reports could have been avoided. 

Lawmaker demands overdue audit of Arizona state hospital after ABC15 investigation exposes problems

• By: Mark LaMet, Dave Biscobing. 
•        Dec. 11, 2013

A state lawmaker has promised to introduce a bill next legislative session that would require a full performance and financial audit of the Arizona State Hospital, known as ASH.

House Minority Leader Representative Chad Campbell , D–Phoenix, said he will be introducing the legislation after seeing a series of exclusive ABC15 investigative reports that exposed a shocking level of violence, frequent escapes, staffing shortages and dangerous conditions for staff and patients inside the state mental hospital.

“It seems like this whole ship is broken, and they need to right the ship,” Campbell said.

The Arizona State Hospital is a state-run behavioral health facility for the severely mentally ill and criminally insane. Campbell met with top hospital officials a few months ago, including state behavioral health director Cory Nelson.

“They gave us this rosy picture that everything was great, everything was fine,” he said.

But Campbell said he didn’t believe them then and he is certainly not convinced now.

Read more: http://www.abc15.com/dpp/news/local_news/investigations/Lawmaker-demands-overdue-audit-of-Arizona-state-hospital-after-ABC15-investigation-exposes-problems#ixzz2nIMpe0xs

PREFACE/FAIR WARNING:

      I promise:  Lydon, Akhter, Patel, Morris, Ramos-Roxas, Dingle, Dy: I do not care how much time and energy this takes, to the last of you, I will seek you out wherever you are and direct the appropriate spotlight upon you to the best of my ability. Your time is coming.

And here we are yet again. Just one more main stream media report about the patently false statements made by persons who have been granted the express privilege of overseeing the care needs of Arizona's most seriously mentally and disabled citizens; persons, that is, human beings with families, friends, and personal histories who are currently hospitalized in Arizona State Hospital, where all such aspects of any patient's  personal life history are demeaned to the point of absolute derision. As though any person affectedly serious mental illness is undeserving of society's  most fundamental forms of respect, care, and access to dignity. To date herein, the theme of the above cited ABC Ch. 15 news report is 100% consistent with my deepest concerns about the horrifically substandard conditions at The Arizona State Hospital, where senior medical clinicians function in tandem with highly paid facility managers and trusted state level public health officials in order to willfully misrepresent the truth about these issues as a matter of standard practice. They do so out of abhorrent selfishness and blatant disregard for others, exhibiting as such a lack of scruples that defies contemporary medical ethics and common decency. No matter how well founded good faith feedback offered to them might happen to, these people carry on as though they are above the law. It is that simple, it is that bad. And I can prove it.

While hospitalized at ASH in 2011-12, I submitted a range of good faith reports illustrating the fact that ASH patients are routinely subjected to highly unlawful mistreatment,  reports that I filed in complete accordance with protocol, and which included irrefutable data that I purposefully documented in order to provide state officials in the Arizona Department of Health/ Behavioral Health Services Office of Grievances and Appeals with sufficient evidence to the effect. I only sought the support of that specific state office after I learned the hard way that on-site Hospital staff required to advocate for patients  whenever issues arise in contradiction to reasonable care and treatment have no interest whatsoever in serving that duty; which is to say, as per the protocol, I began expressing my concerns there within ASH itself, but rather than meaningfully respond to my concerns, various hospital staff- including but far from limited to my own primary attending physician, Pervaiz Akhter, the then ASH chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, as well as former ASH supervisor, Cory Nelson- willfully and systematically engaged in direct retaliation that was clearly designed to intimidate me into silence, and I can prove it.  To provide just one of myriad examples, I was in fact relocated from the most peaceful treatment unit at ASH to the most violent precisely one business day after a grievance report was filed on my behalf by a state employed human rights advocate; and while each of the above named ASH staff denied the matter (as they always do), it does not take a rocket scientist to identify unlawful conduct of this nature when it occurs- particularly if and when you are the victim, as I was.  Such retaliation anytime a citizen of the United States opts to voice disagreement with possible wrongdoing in any/all public health care facility(s) is patently illegal as per the letter of federal and state law, and yet at ASH, it is standard procedure across the board.

Only after realizing the above details did I take my concerns to the offices of state officials, only to learn that the same patterns of abject neglect and utter ineptitude extend to those persons whose very job description demand that they respond, as such. I likewise- thus- did forward several direct communications (letters) to ADHS director Will Humble, this after I determined that persons directly under his authority were refusing to abide by the most fundamental provisions of procedural code, persons in the ADHS/BHS Office of Appeals and Grievances, who have the express duty to respond whenever state citizen-consumers seek their assistance. But Humble did not so much as offer me direct response in his own right, in utter defiance of his responsibility, as per his position at the top of Arizona's public health care system. All aspects of these blatant failures to provide me with these specific services occurred in graphic violation of Arizona law and the public trust itself. I attest to this, and I do, of course, have copies of all such material.

I offer a Big Thanks to state Representative Chad Campbell for taking action at this time. Good work, good sir. Yes, I have been in touch with his office on more than one occasion over the last 6-8 months, and for this reason, my thanks are heartfelt. But Rep. Campbell is not the only person in Arizona's electorate that I have communicated with, to date. With that in mind, and as I have stated already:

If the one's running the Arizona State Hospital believe that this is as bad is it is going to get, they have another thing coming.

FAIR WARNING: In stating this, I am basically reminding ASH psychiatrists across the board that I have exercised due diligence in terms of alerting state and national authorities about the grossly unlawful misconduct that these specific medical "professionals" believe is acceptable. My efforts in this context have been met with reasonable response, but only in the sense that the various authorities- e.g. The American Medical Association- have made record of these reports, with the related assurance to me that should more such evidence arise, appropriate action shall be taken in accordance with law and policy as it stands. With these additional elements of my work in mind, I promise each and every Rat Bastard directly responsible for the grossly unjust treatment of ASH patients that your time is coming. Lydon, P. Akhter, L. Patel, S. Morris, R. Ramos-Roxas, S. Dingle, S. Dy: I do not care how much time and energy this takes, to the last of you, I will seek you out wherever you are and direct the appropriate spotlight upon you to the best of my ability. The possibilities are wide, I am a writer in all senses, set on this objective as a matter of civic duty. And trust me when I say, given the evidence as it stands today (including that in my own data base), none of you are going to be too difficult to expose, as such. Your time will come in due time.  

Hippocratic Oath

Declaration of Geneva 1968-2006

At the time of being admitted as a member of the medical profession:

• I solemnly pledge to consecrate my life to the service of humanity;
• I will give to my teachers the respect and gratitude that is their due;
• I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity;
• The health of my patient will be my first consideration;
• I will respect the secrets that are confided in me, even after the patient has died;
• I will maintain by all the means in my power, the honour and the noble traditions of the medical profession;
• My colleagues will be my sisters and brothers;
• I will not permit considerations of age, disease or disability, creed, ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political affiliation, race, sexual orientation, social standing or any other factor to intervene between my duty and my patient;
• I will maintain the utmost respect for human life;
• I will not use my medical knowledge to violate human rights and civil liberties, even under threat;
• I make these promises solemnly, freely and upon my honour.

Weasel personified. And do not think for one moment that I am forgetting you, Joel Rudd, because there is no way in hell that I am going to let you get away with your longstanding role in furthering the most critically deep wrongdoing at ASH, which as a licensed attorney, you know as well as I has everything to do with gross violations of established state and federal law. Indeed, as a representative staff attorney with the Arizona Office of the Attorney General who has been the on-site legal counsel at ASH for at least two decades, this man is the one person possessing the broadest knowledge and related authority and obligation to the people of Arizona in general, including and especially any citizen-consumer who has been referred and admitted to ASH itself. You have miserably failed to meet your required obligations as an attorney, Rudd, and I know of few clearer examples of utter dereliction of duty in the context.

IN CLOSING: The individuals I have named above have fallen well into the habit of believing that whenever the sorts of oversight are pointed at The Arizona State Hospital, they are in a position to draw into the underbrush, as it were, until the proverbial smoke blows over. But I am here to tell them that the old days are over in this sense. I put myself at very real risk of harm when I was hospitalized at ASH in order to compel these persons to do the right thing, in response to which the abuse and unlawful treatment that I was experiencing first hand only got worse. I went further in terms of effectively advising them, all of them, that I was aware not only of the details illustrating the unlawfulness of their respective misconduct as it arose, but also that I knew how to go about addressing it. I warned them, in fact, and it was not even out of concern for my own needs at the time. It was and is still based upon that fact that each and every ASH patient is a human being deserving of equal treatment that any other person today reasonably expects. I knew it when I was there and experiencing these issues firsthand, and I know it today. I will never leave my former patient peers alone while under your care. It is that simple. 

paoloreed@gmail.com