Thursday, December 31, 2015

IV) RE Dr. Aaron Bowen. This, the twenty second article published by the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse.
Melissa Ring, CEO, Alaska Psychiatric Institute

Dr. Aaron Bowen
Chief Executive Officer
Arizona State Hospital
Spring 2015-present



The new year 2016 is upon us. Bottom line: At The Arizona State Hospital, I attest to the basic fact that senior ranking staff- from administrators to executive level psychiatrists and associated nursing staff- engage in potently lethal discrimination against the ASH patient community (all of whom are disabled by serious mental illness), a clear pattern of unethical conduct underlying the hows and whys of now established evidence to the effect that this public facility has been operating in graphic defiance of law, policy, and fundamental human conscientious. Discrimination of this form, and directly related stigmatization against persons affected by mental illness, has long been the root of horrifically inhumane experiences of such persons seeking help in our nation's public mental health facilities. But I ask "Why?" when it comes to ASH, in one the most wealthy states in America today. Arizona, that is. Food for thought, and then some. 

That said, the following article- originally published about one month after my late February, 2012, discharge from ASH- illustrates the bare bones fact that not only Hospital administrators, but higher ranking officials in the Arizona Department of Health  as well, willfully ignored documented evidence to the effect that ASH patients were being subjected to malicious forms of systemic negligence, which 100% contributed (and still contributes today) to the presence of highly unlawful abuse of patients. In conducting themselves as such, these entrusted members of Arizona's public health care system furthered the long standing existence of grossly unlawful discrimination against persons affected by mental illness. Indeed, what we are looking at here falls nothing short of a bureaucratic culture of corruption, the worst impacts of which ultimately lands squarely on the shoulders of those AZ citizen-consumers most deserving of reasonably optimum services in the the context of public health care. ASH patients, that is, each of whom is highly at risk of such abuse, this on the basis of their given disability.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Bright Line Violations Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Wherein, Arizona State Hospital Chief Executive Officer/Supervisor Corey Nelson Engages In  Graphically Unconstitutional Retaliation And Forcible Coercion and Intimidation, Putting Patients At Grave Risk Of Personal Harm And Fear For Their Lives In Order to Suppress Good Faith Self Advocacy.

     In my April 9, 2012, article (see this blog: 04/09/12 "Fact #3) I described details relating to my having been unlawfully transferred from a markedly peaceful patient unit at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) to a very violent one immediately following the submission of a formal  grievance report (dated September 2, 2011, but relating to events that occurred in late May, 2011) that was produced on my behalf by a former representative of the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Human Rights advocate named John Gallagher. As such, it is clear to me that the unit transfer was imposed on me as matter of criminal retaliation that was imparted on me by my then attending physician, Dr. Pervaiz Akkter, in complicity with former ASH Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, Dr. Lynn Lydon, as well as ASH' legal representative, Mr. Joel Rudd (who is an assistant with the Office of the Arizona Attorney General), solely because I had exercised my fundamental right to voice dissent and good faith concern over abuse of authority and related administrative misconduct at ASH.

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)
     -TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
     -CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Section 12203 Prohibition Against Retaliation and Coercion
       a) Retaliation. No person shall discriminate against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this chapter or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter.
       b) Interference, coercion, or intimidation. It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by this chapter.
       c) Remedies and procedures. The remedies and procedures available under sections 12117, 12133, 12188 of this title shall be available to aggrieved persons for violations of subsections (a) and (b) of this section, with respect to subchapter I, subchapter II and subchapter III of this chapter, respectively.

     The original September 02, 2011, grievance report (for which I was retaliated against) has to date survived a number of administratively corrupt attempts by ASH and The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) Office of Grievances and Appeals (OGA) to effectively squash it without merit, and the matter is still today in the process of legal oversight. I am still, close to one year after the original May, 2011, events that were presented in the grievance report submitted on my behalf by human rights advocate, John Gallagher, on September 04, 2011, awaiting word as to the scheduling date for an affirmed, pending administrative hearing in a state court specific to this matter. The delay of due process in this matter is in graphic violation of constitutional law that all Americans are deserved of being protected by, but nobody at the state seems to care. Thus, it is matter of time before federal intervention will be required as matter of removing the criminal elements of ASH administrators and clinicians, as well as related departmental corruption and administrative negligence.

       As to the retaliative transfer,  one business day after the Sept. 2011 grievance report arrived in the administrative offices at ASH, I was advised in a September 06, 2012, letter drafted and signed by ASH Supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson and former ASH Chief Medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, that I was being transferred from the notably peaceful Palo Verde East unit to the very violent unit, Desert Sage East. I have attached this letter and a handful of other related documents further below; therein, a sequence of administrative actions designed to punish me for having participated in a lawful, good faith report of gross administrative abuse of authority that discriminated against me and abridged a number of my constitutional rights to dignity, freedom from undue restriction and restraint, fair treatment, and several other very serious liberties and protections afforded me and all patients at ASH under the provisions of the congressionally created ADA statute, and the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.    
        However, and in addition to the technical features of ASH unlawful administrative actions laid out later in this article, I am including the following Arizona Republic newspaper article about a man named Joe Saucedo Gallegos, who bludgeoned two little boys to death with a baseball bat in 2008, because Mr. Gallegos and his story as it stands today has direct bearing on the validity of my concerns. It is my not my desire to worsen Mr. Gallegos personal life at this date, for he is also a victim of the mental health system, in my humble opinion, this despite my feelings about the heinousness of the crime that he was recently prosecuted for; but the fac tof the matter is, Mr. Gallegos presence at ASH directly relates to my allegations concerning the retaliation that I was subjected to....  
       

      .... For, as though to add insult to injury, it was not until I learned about this man's history and violent nature in the above newspaper article (a good 5-6 weeks after I discharged form ASH in late February, 2012) that I realized the graphic extent to which ASH administrative and clinical staff had gone in order to criminally attempt to suppress my voice as a patient and human being. But I came into direct contact with Joe Saucedo Gallegos on a daily basis as soon as I was subjected to the retaliative unit transfer that I describe abovebecause I became his new bathroom-mate (for lack of a better term), making us virtual roommates. Initially unbeknownest to me, too, Mr Gallegos was aware of my efforts to address ASH' staff involvement with illicit tobacco and other substances sales and use at ASH, and he harbored a very real resentment towards me for this reason, because he was a very active dealer, and loan shark, of sorts. Due to these circumstances, I was subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation by this man (and other patients on Desert Sage East) for the entirety of my final six months at ASH. Staff was fully aware of these facts, and the ongoing threats of violence directed at me by this man were documented on numerous occasions after I reported it, but I was never aware of how radically dangerous my situation was. 

      

































Above is the formal transfer order issued that I received from ASH Supervisor Cory Nelson and former ASH Chief medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, on September 06, 2011, one business after ASH had received submission of the September 02, 1011, grievance document prepared and submitted by a very competent, state employed human rights advocate. 
Advising me, as such,  that I was to be transferred from the known to be peaceful Palo Verde East unit to the notoriously violent Desert Sage East unit. The letter is absolutely barren of the required information when it comes to unit transfers, and I find it insulting, at best, to have to believe that these people believe they can pull this sort of egregious misconduct on disabled persons such as myself; but as I have also made clear, these sorts of practices are par for the course at ASH, and they impose these sorts of criminal actions on all the patients at ASH, as a matter of standard practice. 


Not only was the transfer clearly imposed upon me as a matter of retaliation, it was in violation of very straight forward ADHS rules and procedure, too;  for, as shown below, there is a specific protocol whereby the patient and the patients entire inpatient treatment and discharge planning team is to be provided with a reasonable explanation of the expectant therapeutic benefits of a unit transfer, which the letter above clearly does not include. In fact, the entire sequence of events specific to the transfer process in this case were void of any of the required terms described below, in terms relating to the planning of a unit transfer, as well as in terms of immediate follow up procedures. In short, I was blatantly denied every benefit in the book as a patient of ASH and client department of health, which again, I contend would never be allowed to occur in a  hospital not designed to exclusively treat mentally disabled persons, or a private hospital for that matter.
        


 ASH such, public entities and facilities such as the Arizona State Hospital and its staff, and the staff of the affiliated Department of Health Services, as well as the representatives of the state attorney generals office such asJoel Rudd,(who I contend for good reason has more familiarity with directly applicable law in this context than any other involved party- he's a freaking lawyer who has represented ASH since the early 1990s, for crying out loud!), are all subject to  the scrutiny of federal oversight flowing from the provisions of the ADA and other like law and policy standards, as shown below:

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)
     -TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
     -CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

SUBCHAPTER II- PUBLIC SERVICES
       Part A- Prohibition Against Discrimination and Other Generally Applicable Provisions
Section 12131. Definitions
      As used in this subchapter:
  1) Public entity. The term "public entity" means
(A) any state or local government;
(B) any department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or States or local government.
  2) Qualified individual with a disability. The term "qualified individual with a disability" means an individual who, with or without reasonable modifications to rules, policies, or practices, the removal of architectural, communication, or transportation barriers, or the provision of auxiliary aids and services, meets the essential eligibility requirements for the receipt of services or the participation in programs or activities provided by a public entity.

Section 12132. Discrimination
Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.

         I immediately recognized that required procedures had been disregarded to an extreme that definitely extended to the realm of federal protections and so on, but as always, I began a process of fundamentally good faith dissent that relied upon the willingness of the patient advocate at ASH, Sonya Serda, to
do her part in terms of at least addressing the fact that hospital and ADHS procedure hadn't been followed, as expressed in a September 12, 2011, grievance report that I submitted to Ms. Serda, shown below:   

CORY "CRAZYCORYCORNER" NELSON'S SEPTEMBER 30, 2011, LETTER TO ME


































I also drafted a letter to Cory Nelson himself concerning this matter, and about two full weeks later, I received his personal interpretation of his given authority, as shown here. In his letter to me, Mr. Nelson patently denies any obligation to the most centrally involved patients (in this case, me), justifying his authority in this matter as supercedent to every applicable regulation and requirement of unit transfers. Despite my pointing out to him that there are numerous- and very clear- provisions of Arizona Administrative Code, as well as ASH/ADHS own rules, relating to unit transfers, Mr. Nelson flatly disregarded these fundamental merits of my concerns, and instead, instead issuing the above letter wherein he expoloits the possibility that mentally ill persons have little or no access to such documents and related provisions, basically telling me that he can do whatever he wants. Mr. Nelson also expressed himself as being rather out of touch with the concept of voluntarily cooperative patients such as myself, when he points out my right to "request discharge" if I am not satisfied with "the treatement" that I was receiving. The Arizona state Hospital is not a Motel Six, and my very clear dissatisfactions with my treatment at ASH were always founded upon equally clear reports of staff misconduct and related unlawfulness.   Mr. Nelson's position on these matters, as stated in this letter, reeks of administrative disregard for patient, and is very akin to the discriminative tendeny of ASH physicians in terms of how they sp often abuse their respective authority, doing whatever they want to with no concern whatsoever for the wellbeing of their patients, and then chalk it off in the context of treatment needs. In both contexts, it is criminally extreme abuse of the "powers" and directly related responsibilites that people like Mr. Nelson are granted and assigned via the public trust, and in my humble opion, misconduct that absolutely pollutes and disqualifies them from the privileges that society grants such individuals in society today.  

      As evidenced in Nelson's langauge in the above letter, these specific matters offer an outstanding example of the severity of administrative negligence that I experienced while hospitalized at ASH, and very clearly represents the substandard conditions that the patients at the Arizona State Hospital are subjected to on a daily basis. My "treatment" at ASH was not unusual, in this sense, and it goes to show that ASH operates in direct defiance of the ADA and other highly valued mandates of common deciency and protocol on a daily basis.  

       At this time, I have prevailed in fighting ASH' and ADHS' attempts to cover up the highly egregious retaliation that I was subjected to by the September 06, 2011, unit transfer from what is possibly the most peaceful unit at ASH to the arguably most violent one; and I have yet to hear, but as with the original September 06, 2011, grievance report that led to ASH Supervisor and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle's  decision to punish me for my self advocacy efforts, there is a pending (yet to be scheduled) hearing that will be conducted in the Arizona Office of Administrative a hearings in downtown Phoenix in specific relation to my allegations concerning retaliation, and the high degree of risk that was posed to me for the last 6 months of my so called "treatment" at the Arizona State Hospital.
        I cannot easily describe the extent of violence that I was exposed to after my transfer to Desert Sage East unit, but suffice it to say, it is a unit specifically staffed and designed to house the most problematic, and potentially violent,  patients on the civil side of ASH . As such, the atmoshpere on Desert Sage East contradicts my personality characteristics and the very heart of my given diagnosis. The impacts of this action led to myriad experiences on that unit were deeply disturbing and very detrimental to my overall well being. In sum, I was assaulted by mentally disturbed patients on nine occasions during the whole of my nearly two year period of hospitalization in mental health facilities, ASH and elsewhere circa 2010-2012, and in none of those occasions did I so much as strike back in my own defense or otherwise engage in violent acts. I am a nonviolent person dedicated to civil interactions with others at all times, I have no history of violence or related criminal record, and to quote a rather well known Kinks song: "I'm not the world's most physical guy...", either. It is my express contention that ASH administrators and clinicians knew this about me (how could they not?) when they opted to subject me to the highly volatile and clearly dangerous environment of Desert Sage East. I am still bothered by very real anxiety and fear that stems directly from the months I spent on that unit, and I am uncomfortably distrustful of medical authorities now, too, in direct relation to the radically criminally malfeasant abuse of power that was subjected on me in this matter. It is a bottom line fact that any number of nonviolent mentally ill adults at ASH are subjected to retaliation and related undue exposure to harm on a day to day basis.          
       Hopefully, these documents will give readers an idea of the systematic manner in which ASH administrators and department of health representatives flaunt their ill conceived sense of power and authority over persons effected by serious mental illness and related disability as matter of standard practice. It is criminal and inhumane to the nth degree. Let's stop it today. (April, 2012). 

(end of article)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fast forward to the present. December 31, 2015. It took over 3 full years for the evidence that I sought to make public in this blog to have any meaningful effect. Had the associated state and federal agencies most responsible to seeing that facilities such as ASH strictly abide to federal enactments such as Americans With Disabilities ACT (US Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Dept. of Justice respective offices of civil rights) met there due diligence in this context, a wide range of related tragedies would not have occurred. It is that simple. And even now, various number of directly guilty individuals are still working at ASH, this despite their known complicity in allowing for the abuse of ASH patients to occur, this in the broader context of patient care needs and personal interests, as per the letter of federal and state law. 

It became clear to me early on in my thirteen total months of hospitalization in Arizona's sole long term public mental health facility (ASH) that the core causes for grossly substandard practices at ASH that have now been exposed in local and national news- and this blog- have everything to do with the simple fact that all ASH patients are disabled under state and federal law. Seriously mentally ill, and as such, highly vulnerable-at risk of discrimination, negligence, abuse, and other like factors that have long been imposed on such citizens who seek treatment in public mental hospitals across the board. And at ASH, these elements of the status of the Hospital's overall patient community were indisputably  taken harmful advantage of by ASH administrators and senior level psychiatric staff (doctors and management level nurses alike).

In my case, I recognized this reality within hours- literally- of my admission to ASH, and as time passed thereafter, my deepest sense of conscientious objection was heightened to the point that I knew I could not stand back and allow for the graphic misconduct of most ASH staff- at all levels of employ- to occur. And for this, once I began exercising my right to report these conditions as per protocol, not only did state health care officials patently reject the merits of the lawfully presented evidence, I was furhter retaliated against by ASH administrators and associated senior medical staff. This pattern continued for the entirety of my time at ASH, literally until the day of my February, 2012, discharge. Abject administrative negligence in the executive office(s) of ASH, and beyond in the highest offices of ADHS/BHS. Herein I request for the ones now sitting in the highest administrative offices at ASH and beyond in ADHS/BHS to take appropriate action with the applicable federal standards by which ASH and the state of Arizona have been granted the privilege of overseeing the care needs and interests of the disabled ASH patients, patients' families, and the greater public in general. Nothing short of this will suffice in bringing ASH up to speed with contemporary health care standards, for until each and every individual directly involved in the now known corruption at ASH is brought to full accountability, the presence of egregiously misbehavior of ASH staff will continue to occur. Themes of deterrence, etc., are critically needed, and there's only one way to bring that about. Now. 

Sunday, December 20, 2015

III) Dr. Aaron Bowen, cont. Herein, one of the first issues of concern that I opted to seek to address while hospitalized in Arizona's sole long term mental health care facilities.

Melissa Ring, CEO, Alaska Psychiatric Institute
Dr. Aaron Bowen
Chief Executive Officer
Arizona State Hospital
Spring 2015-present
I fairly well recalled hearing about the woman who survived being run over by a rail road train on the northwest side of Tucson, AZ, in 2002 or so. Blown away beyond understanding as to how anyone could, in fact, survive such an event; and correct at the time- when I read about it in the Tucson papers- in presuming that the woman had been affected by some nature of death wish. Suicide.

Less then one week after being admitted to the Arizona State Hospital in late 2010, I met Audrey Peterson. As the following article illustrates (originally published July 7, 2012), meeting her at that early point in  my treatment at ASH compelled me for the first time, in effect, to formally try and address the rampant presence of patient abuse and associated substandard health care practices and conditions there. I undertook the task merely on the basis of it being obvious to me that nobody else in Audrey's life there at ASH was willing to do so; in the same vein that I founded this blog, my thinking at the time being: Someone has to, nobody else is willing to, and as such, I suppose it will have to be me.    

Brutal Discrimination: No Electric Wheel Chair For You, Audrey Peterson! Herein one more prime example of cold hearted cruelty and abuse at the Arizona State Hospital.

For period of no less than 5-7 years the clinical staff at the Arizona State Hospital has denied a woman with no feet or lower legs and only one arm access to an electric wheel chair, while foreign trained psychiatrists subject patients to culturally taboo and blatantly unlawful standards of care and treatment that fly in the face of common understandings of American democracy and international human rights. Audrey Peterson's rights as a human being supersede the authority of any one person or representative staff at ASH or anywhere else in this nation. Bottom line.

Call ASH today (602)244-1331 and demand that Audrey Peterson be granted her full rights as a human being. 

THIS IS A REPUBLISHED VERSION OF AN EARLIER ARTICLE (see April 12, 2012: "No Electric Wheelcair For You, Audrey P!"CONCERNING THE CLINICAL STAFF AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL'S REFUSAL TO GRANT A SEVERELY PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED WOMAN NAMED AUDREY PETERSON ACCESS TO AN ELECTRONICALLY POWERED WHEEL CHAIR DESPITE THE FACT THAT A NUMBER OF GOOD FAITH MANUFACTURERS  OF SUCH TECHNOLOGY EXPRESSED INTEREST IN PROVIDING A CHAIR TO HER.

Department of Justice Seal 
U.S. Department of Justice
Americans with Disabilities Act

CENTRALLY INVOLVED ASH STAFF INCLUDE: DR. RUBY RAMOS-ROXAS, FORMER CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER DR. STEVEN DINGLE, AND SENIOR SOCIAL SERVICES REPRESENTATIVES.
       So, here is a quick tale about one of the really disturbing things I came upon at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) that may very well relate to my social theories in this context. I had been there maybe 2-3 weeks, when in early February, 2011, I met a very nice young woman named Audrey Peterson., who has been wheelchair bound since losing both of her legs and one arm in a near fatal train accident just NW of Tucson maybe 8-9 years ago. Audrey can be seen pretty regularly outside on the patient mall, struggling to push herself around with her one arm in a mechanical wheel chair. Without doubt, in terms of how unkindly some people treat others, this is one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed in my entire life; and the given reality that I encountered this horrible display of cruelty and neglect in a hospital setting, of all places, exceeds my capacities as a moral being. Such is the reality at The Arizona State Hospital, where anyone on the civil side of ASH with half a conscience will notice a one armed woman laboring away in a mechanical wheelchair, literally inching her way up and down the 1/4 mile long mall area, which is only partially paved, while able bodied staff and patients virtually blow by her at a full walking pace as though the woman doesn't even existAudrey Peterson is consequently denied reasonable access to the vast majority of therapeutic and recreational resources available to other patients at ASH, and she is subject to gross humiliation that cuts to the core of her fundamental human right to dignity.
                    
        I  first met Audrey Peterson at one of the outdoor patio tables on the patient mall within 5-7 days of my early January, 2011, arrival to the civil section of The Arizona State Hospital. It was an astounding introduction, in no small part due the the pitiful sight of a one armed woman in a wheelchair that requires two arms to operate. After basic niceties, we got around to asking the often inevitable questions regarding why we were there, and as it turned out, we both had a history of depression and potentially lethal attempts at suicide. She then went on to the describe the fact that she had lain her body down on top of a major railroad track on the NW outskirts of Tucson after drinking an excess of alcohol, where she fell into a deep sleep, and that a train had come along at some point and run over both of her legs and one of her arms. In any such description of tragedy, with so dramatic a story line, the question of how in the heck anyone could possibly survive an accident of this magnitude unavoidably arises, and as we continued talking, it occurred to me that I recalled the actual Tucson news story about the event. I was, indeed, astounded to meet this woman, whose story had very much caught my attention at the time it occurred, both due to the drama of it, as well in the context of me presuming that the person involved in the incident when I heard about first heard about it must have had a death wish, something that I have long been able to relate to. I recall thinking "Oh my god... She survived something like that, this person, who surely must have chosen death, only to find herself left permanently maimed, yet still alive..."
       I am not entirely certain, but I think that in our initial conversation, I went on to ask Audrey Peterson how in the hell it could be that she didn't have an electric wheel chair, and she told "My doctor won't allow me to have one." I was further shocked to hear this addendum to her already tragic tale, the audaciousness of such a claim is still somewhat beyond my sensibility and relative comprehension; it so shocked my sense of humanity and common concern for others, that I was initially unable to respond. There are bound to be any number of goof ball stories floating around when you live in a population of mentally disturbed persons, so I initially took her statements with a grain of salt. I asked Audrey if she had, in her own right, ever looked into getting an electric wheel chair, and she told me that no, she hadn't never done that. So I decided to see what I could come up with. I also began asking patients and staff alike what they could tell me about Audrey Peterson's primary care physician Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas (a native Filipino woman who acquired her medical training in an unaccredited college in her home country), because I immediately realized that if I were to come to the conclusion that there was any merit to this account of at least one ASH' doctor's brutality, I was going to have to look into addressing the issue at some point in time. Such is my nature, but it is not an exclusive unique sense of conscientious reaction to such things, not in the United States, anyway.

        Now, I had no grand visions of charitably saving the day for the poor woman, it simply seemed like the least I could do, given her obvious hardship and the fact that I had so much free time (it's not as though patients are steeped in therapy and what not at ASH and on average, I had several hours of free time on any given day to read, write, draw, etc.). So I took this shockingly critical (yet tiny/little) cause with me into the patient library, where I came upon a directory of resources for disabled persons and in that directory I came upon a section dedicated to the topic of wheel chairs. Within one hour I had drafted a straight forward inquiry letter wherein I described the fact that I had a friend in the Arizona State Hospital who had a very real need for a electronic wheel chair, and I also made clear that I was not a doctor and could have nothing more to do with the matter, and asked that anybody willing and able to help Audry P. with this should feel free to to contact Audry P.'s treatment team there at the Hospital.  I then printed up copies of this simple one page inquiry and on April 8, 2011, mailed it to the following seven organizations:


          1) Arizona Community Foundation, Phoenix, AZ    
          2) Margaret T. Morris Foundation, Prescott, AZ           
          3) Disability Funding News, Silver Springs, MD  
          4) Arizona Department of Economic Security
          5) AZ Center for Disability Law, Phoenix     
          6) Friends of Disabled Adults and Children, Stone Mt. GA
          7) Mobility International, USA, Eugene, OR



Audrey's                        A Powered Chair
Chair
       
     At the time, I fully explained to Audrey P. that I had put the letters into the mail, and I further  explained to her that I was not going to be able to do anything beyond that, telling her to be sure and talk to her primary attending physician about it (Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas), and that her clinical treatment team would very possibly would be hearing from one or another of the seven resources that I sent the letter to. Audrey Peterson, in turn, was appreciative of my action. I explained to her that I had taken me less than 90 minutes of my time, and that the action should have been taken long before this.  
       It was, indeed, a simple act of faith and decent courtesy. All I could think at the time was how messed up it was that somebody else hasn't already gone about dong this simply thing, chocking the situation up to the basic bizarreness ASH, which I had already pegged as a very strangely operated facility. I had little idea, however, of where I was, in fact. 
      On April 22, I asked Audrey P. if there had been any developments, and she told me that her primary attending physician, Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas, was angry at her, for some reason, and at me, too, for "interfering" with Audrey P.'s treatment. Naturally, I was pretty shocked at this, so I asked a staff person who I knew took part in Audrey P.s monthly treatment planning meetings about it, and she told that it was true! This staff person went on and further informed me that several of the contacts I had made had been in touch with Dr. Ramos-Roxas as a matter of offering to help Audrey P. acquire an electronic wheel chair of her own, but Dr. Ramos-Roxas had basically discarded these good faith responses into the nearest trash can. I attest to this conversation, and can and will identify the staff member when the time comes, as she had already agreed to cooperate with any investigations into this matter. The staff person also informed me that Dr. Ramos-Roxas' position on the issue was that ASH had provided Audrey P. with two prosthetic legs and one prosthetic arm, but that Audrey P., but that, if Audrey was not willing to take the initiative to learn how to use the prosthetic devices, she has no right to an electric wheel chair.

          "Why not just take her mechanical wheelchair away while you are at it, Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas?!! We don't want Audrey getting away with anything, do we?"

      It is common knowledge that psychiatric care and related treatment relies on sound communication. In this context, many people refer to the field of psychiatry as somewhat of an art, and I have come to wholeheartedly agree with that idea, because the fundamental elements of trust and reliability necessary to carry on a healthy psychiatric relationship flow from the critical one on one patient to doctor interactions that underlie such treatment. At ASH, however, it was apparent to me rather quickly that my primary attending physician(s) did not give a rat's ass whether I trusted them or not, because to most of the clinical staff at ASH, the relationship is purely about power, and the doctors wield a peculiar authority that's only granted to them through their relatively unique positions at the Arizona State Hospital.

Anybody familiar with the history of state mental hospitals is at least somewhat aware that facilities like ASH are breeding grounds for abuse, and in my observations, the doctors I worked most closely with at ASH carried on their practices in extreme defiance of commonly acknowledged standards of decency and kindnesss.

          In this sense, the clinicians at ASH sometimes struck me as downright ignorant in terms of common ethics, and they were insultingly inept in terms of their communication skills. In the case of my primary care physician-psychiatrists at ASH, I begrudgingly came to accept that these problems were basically due to the fact that my doctors were all foreigners, in both terms of cultural backgrounds as well as education. My first psychiatrist, Laxman Patel, went to medical school in his native country, India; the second, Pervaiz Ahkter, in his native country, Pakistan; and the third, Sylvia Dy, in her native country, the Philippines. None of them attended an accredited medical school. No offense to anybody not of American origin, but somethings are simply unacceptable in terms of America's minimal qualities of life.

That said, at the risk of sounding culturally insensitive:

   The Philippines, India, Pakistan: None of these nations are recognized for their stances on human rights or related practicing of democratic values, to say the least. Likewise, it is common knowledge to any reasonably informed person in this age, that in these nations it is the elite- as in the highly educated, etc.- who most significantly contribute to the radical injustices effecting anyone of lesser privilege. On this basis of logic, I posit that the "medical services" provided by ASH's senior psychiatric physicians basically resemble the conditions in third world countries. Inhumanely displaced distribution of power personified, due to the ignorance/negligence of those in the captain's seat. As in, Cory Nelson, Donna Noriega, Joel Rudd, and so on.... (And... Dr. Aaron Bowen? Only time will tell....)

It's that bad.

I can attest to the fact that it is terrifying to experience inhumane abuses of authority in a hospital setting, where any/all Americans expect to be provided safety and associated humanely established practices. And what's most shocking is that at the psychiatric physicians I interacted with at ASH on a regular basis were seemingly incapable of understanding how grossly egregious their conduct often is. From Dr. Dr. Laxman Patel ("What do you expect? This is the state hospital [Feb. 13, 2011]; to Dr. Pervaiz Akhter ("Are you really not a felon?" [June 11, 2011]); to Dr. Lynn Lydon ("I am not a big fan of rules." [November 8, 2011]).


Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
Great Seal of the United States.



Full title: Act to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability.
       
    Despite the findings and purpose underlying this critically established federal enactment, such are the conditions at the Arizona State Hospital, the state's only long term public mental health facility

Ask yourself, as I did: HOW CAN THIS BE?


      I don't know quite else to say about this story. But I am of the opinion that any man or woman willing to deny Audrey Peterson the fullest comforts available to her as a physically disabled person is a criminal. As always, I will attest to the validity of my experiences in this case. And as stated, anybody who has spent much time at ASH has seen my friend Audrey Peterson trying to push herself with only her one arm, moving slower than cold maple syrup in her mechanical wheelchair outside on the patient mall. It is freaking ridiculous, beyond anything I have ever witnessed. It must stop. 

IN CLOSING: So here again, a clear cause for you to get involved. Please visit my April 30, 2012 "Resources Ideas" article and consider how to take action today. I also encourage you to contact the Arizona State Hospital at (602) 244-1331 in order to advocate for Audrey Peterson at this time. Defy the Arizona Department of Health's willingness to ignore this matter, and speak out against any clinical statement to the effect that granting this woman a powered wheelchair is  against her welfare and interests as a patient there at ASH.


UPDATE DECEMBER 2015: I would love to have some- make that any- confirmation to the effect that my friend Audrey Peterson is no longer being deprived of the appropriate wheelchair technology that she deserves- as per federal law. As I have stated above, the medical staff at ASH have no right whatsoever to deny Audrey of such a benefit- for any such person to believe so is a graphic violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act, 100% consistent with the overall substandard practices at ASH. In keeping with this, that Audrey is now capable of accessing all aspects of the therapeutic resources available throughout the entirety of the ASH's civil side. It's really that simple. Until I get some/any information to the effect that ASH administrators are taking direct action with respect to this and every other element of shortsighted care at ASH pointed out in this blog over the last 3.5 years, I refuse to rest; by "some/any", I am not referring to party line rhetoric espoused by persons such as ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ, who sent me aNovember 9, 2015, email that stated: "Many changes have occurred at the state hospital over the past 6 months..." (nothing vague about that, eh'?)

The power of the pen, in correlation to the power of the world wide web, is very much alive today, and the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse are in this for the long run.That said, the ball is in your court, Dr. Christ. And you, as well, Dr. Aaron Bowen. Do the right thing while the doing is good. I mean that.

(July 7, 2012) Audrey Peterson's rights as a human being supersede the authority of any one person or staff at ASH, bottom line. The Arizona State Hospital: (602)244-1331. Simple stuff, and although the hospital operators will be unable/unwilling to so much as verify Audrey Peterson's very existance, as per privacy laws and so on, if you clarify your awareness of the fact that this young woman has been denied an electric wheel chair for all these years and that she has as much right to an electric wheel chair as anybody else (!!!) you will have made a difference. Likewise, if you feel like you might have what it takes to get involved with fighting for the rights of all of the patients at the Arizona State Hospital, please get in touch with me: 

paoloreed@gmail.com