Since her appointment to the highest ranking position in Arizona’s public health care system in 2015, Arizona Department of Health Director Dr. Cara Christ has repeatedly stated that there have been “great improvements” in the state’s sole long term public mental health care facility, Arizona State Hospital (ASH). To date however, January 2018, Dr. Christ has never provided any evidence or information about just what these “improvements” at ASH are, in fact. This is of very real concern to the staff of this publication, given that Dr. Christ’s immediate predecessor (Will Humble ADHS Director 2009-2015) willfully relied upon producing a pattern of overt and untruthful propaganda that served to delay a subsequent process of critically needed oversight and accountability at ASH. Propaganda that defied the realities specific to the ASH operation, including but not limited to several preventable patient deaths, the tragic murder of a young Phoenix woman, and the suppression of a wide range of patient generated concerns expressed in grievance submissions; as such, granting the former administrators of ASH further opportunity to continue operating ASH in a manner deeply harmful to the welfare of the Hospital’s patient community.
These issues have been exemplified by the information provided in this blog since 2012, as well as in a number of scathing investigative findings of the staff of ABC Ch15 circa 2013-2015. The following article was originally published sometime in the first twelve months of the life of this blog, PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital Patient Abuse. We are republishing this information as one means to remind our readers of how dismally substandard the operation at ASH was circa 2010-2012, and in order to raise consideration as to whether in fact any legitimate improvements have in fact come about since Dr. Christ was granted directorship over Arizona’s public health care system.
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INTRODUCTION: Arizona State Hospital administrators, physicians, nurses, and behavioral health technicians will as often as not openly abuse the rights of their patients in order to preserve substandard practices, rather than risk being held accountable for their wrongdoing The problem is systemic and endemic in all senses, and no matter how much good faith effort any one patient puts into trying to address wrongdoing when it occurs, Hospital staff will engage in systematic suppression of and even retaliation against that patient for taking such action.
I don't want to risk being overindulgent in terms of simply bitching and moaning about my personal opinion about the Arizona State Hospital (ASH). It's a safe guess that nobody in their right mind (no pun intended) would find much pleasure in being hospitalized for 13 months, and of course, no hospital is perfect. But indeed, ASH is like no other hospital that I have ever spent time in, and this includes the other psychiatric hospitals I spent time in prior to my arrival at ASH. In my opinion, ASH is nothing short of a safe haven for abusers and incompetents, truly a place where otherwise unemployable mental health professionals can go in order to get away with all sorts of unlawful conduct. I have in recent weeks come upon a number of well researched critiques showing that state mental hospitals are "snakepits" for patient abuse and substandard practices, as follows:
"Numerous state psychiatric hospitals have recently been exposed for violations and/or deficiencies in patient care and safety, including several that have come under U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation. The reports show that these facilities are not safe, sanitary or rehabilitative places." (S. Wagner, Director of Litigation and Prosection, The Citizens Commission on Human Rights. November 24, 2007)
The time has come for the citizens of Arizona to be made aware of the vast irresponsibility of ASH administrators and clinicians. Each and every patient at ASH is a human being, and as such, somebody's son or daughter, father or mother, brother or sister, and so on. To allow the wrongdoing to continue is simply wrong, and I encourage anybody who is interested in looking more closely at these issues to get in touch with me. I have a very reasonable body of sound evidential material that supports all aspects of my allegations, and in time, I will do what I can to get it all on-line.
But at the moment, as a matter of getting to the meat of my current situation as a recently discharged ASH patient who has ongoing business with the rat bastards who are most responsible for the wrongdoing there, I am going to sum up four important examples of my experiences at ASH, as follows via ASH Facts of Life #2:
Fact #2) Staff assault and battery on patients, administrative negligence and abuse of authority, criminal abridgments of constitutional rights, willful culpable negligence in terms of required administrative duties, and the willful involvement of public law enforcement in furthering these issues.
(Originally published April 05, 2012)
In general, it is illegal to so much as touch another person in an aggressive or unreasonable (uninvited) manner, and aggressiveness in general, including yelling in someones face, threatening another person, and so on, falls under various definitions of criminal assault, provocation, and threatening. In terms of hospital staff and the rights of patients to receive treatment without fear of harm or verbal/physical attack from staff, these standards are universally established to point of being elementary common knowledge. that said, there is absolutely no room in any hospital setting for aggressive, threatening, or assaultive staff, nor is there any justification for any hospital to retain employees with any reputation whatsoever in terms of such characteristics. Except at ASH, where conduct of this nature occurs with such frequency that at times the atmosphere takes on an air of pure chaos, with staff members carrying on as though they are prison guards, or worse, and hospital administration will go around the mountain and back in order to protect staff members accused of such behavior, rather than taking into full consideration the rights, care needs, and general well being of the patients.
In my first 6 months of treatment at ASH, I had numerous run-ins with an especially mean and aggressive female technician named Elaine Traylor, a very large woman who, in my observations, regularly subjected patients on my then assigned unit, Palo Verde East, to ongoing verbal abuse and other forms of egregious indignity. My willingness to stand up to this woman's aggressiveness by basically advising her in a civil manner time and time again that she was out of line only made her more angry, so I in time reported her behavior to my assigned first primary care physician, Dr. L. Patel, in the hope that he would do something about it.
But nothing came of it, and Dr. Patel actually fell into a habit of trying to discourage me form reporting such misconduct. Elaine T., meanwhile continued to lambaste me on a regular basis, so regularly, that as a matter of emotionally surviving her cruelty, I had to implement a simple means of civil protest to her conduct by making it my standard practice to ignore her to the best of my ability at all times, as follows.
At 8:20 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, July 7, 2011, as I was minding my own business and interacting with a medication nurse name Aleesha directly in front of the Palo Verde East medication window, Elaine T. approached me from behind and then proceeded to verbally and physically assault and batter me by striking me in the upper right side rib cage with her left hand, which caused sore and possibly broken ribs along with obvious bruising. As soon as Ms. Traylor hit me, I cried out for assistance in direct protest of her action, but despite there being at least three other staff persons present, not a-one of them so much as lifted an eyebrow over the affair as it occurred directly in front of them, thereby allowing E. Traylor to continue with her graphically criminal behavior.
I somewhat presume that the other staff are almost as afraid of this woman as patients are, but to my knowledge, there are at least 2 specific state laws (protocol) that apply directly to any situation where a patient so much as suggests that they have been or are being attacked (whether by staff or not), and in this case, the applicable protocol was flatly ignored.
I then proceeded to request that staff put me in touch with the Phoenix police so that I could report the attack, which is 100% within any patient's rights and falls under very seriously mandated protections in terms of due process and the US Constitution. I made this request immediately following the attack, but staff rejected it at that time, and again and again throughout the day, despite my stating in no uncertain terms that denying me the right to call the police was in clear violation of law and my civil rights, most specifically with respect for due process.
Meanwhile, at different points of the day, at 3 least members of ASH clinical and administrative staff, including my primary attending physician, Dr. Pervais Ahkter, my assigned social worker, Megan Mischner, and the ASH patient advocate/ombudsman, Sonya Serda, attempted to dissuade me from reporting the attack to police, or otherwise interfered with my right to due process and equal protection.
As it turned out, I was not allowed to contact police until about 3:30 in the afternoon, this after the above staff members had gone about trying to persuade me not to call them, and the responding officers didn't arrive until close to 4:40 p.m., which was too late in the day for me to exercise my right to have an advocate present.
Three security guards who escorted me to meet with the responding officers actively tried to intimidate me in terms of my willingness to file the report, telling me that I was "making a mistake" and that they didn't believe "any such event had occurred."
It is standard practice (and of common knowledge to many patients) for ASH employees, including security guards (in my experience), to declare any patient willing to openly report staff wrongdoing as "delusional," and it was clear as I began the interview with the responding officers that ASH staff had already influenced the officers opinion of the event, which is highly illegal in terms of due process and one's right due protection and safety under state and federal law. One of the officers then left the interview room in order to review video footage of the event.
At this stage of the whole charade, I still had a semblance of faith and basic confidence in the process, because I not only knew the truth but also foolishly believed that there was no chance of the truth being compromised due to the fact that I knew there were video cameras present at the time that Elaine T. attacked me. But when the officer returned after reviewing the video footage, he declared that there was no evidence whatsoever of Elaine T. so much as approaching me, raising her hands in an aggressive manner, or even yelling at me.
The officers then made statements to the effect that I was lying to them about the whole affair, while the security guards nodded their heads and muttered, "Ya', see? This is what were talking about with this guy."
Following this episode, the police officers refused to file a formal complaint against Elaine T., but I hardly cared at that point because I was so frightened by it all. I learned in a flash how deeply corrupt the situation was, bottom line, and my stomach immediately began churning with panic over how radically dangerous ASH staff can be at times. A very uncomfortable sense of fear over my safety set in, a condition that never really left for the remainder of my time at ASH, (and in these first few weeks since my discharge, I have repeatedly experienced nightmares specific to this sequence of events).
The following day I was informed that an ASH/ADHS investigator named Vicky Fox would be handling my grievance report/complaint about the attack, and that evening I met with Ms. Fox for 90 full minutes, during which time she took my full report, including 4-5 digital photos of very definite bruising that had formed over my ribs where Elaine T. had hit me.
Ms. Fox also showed me at least some of the available video footage at that time, and the bulk of E. Traylor's behavior exactly as I had reprted it to that point was confirmed (in vivid contradiction , which proved my suspicion that police were either showed illegitimate video evidence, or were in fact complicit with ASH staff in engaging in not only denying my rights to due process but also of interfering with a criminal investigation. My confidence in the integrity of the investigative process was slightly restored by this meeting with Ms. Fox, but it hardly relieved my well reasoned fear about the conditions at ASH.
Elaine T. continued to harass and intimidate me and other patients on the Palo Verde East unit, and despite my submitting several clear reports about it, nothing was done. And close to sixty three (63) days later, which was over thirty (30) days beyond the required time line in terms of such investigations, I was advised by ASH' Chief Operating Officer Donna Noriega that the ASH/ADHS investigation had turned up no evidence in support of my allegations.
It- all of it- was a gut level circus of gross injustice, administrative abuse, and as such, clear criminal malfeasance. Again, as with every basic grievance report that I ever had to submit, I had to dig deep and put my own welfare at risk in order to not allow ASH and the ADHS Office of Grievance and Appeals brush the whole matter under their damn carpet, while doing all I could to survive a whole new wave of staff retaliation.
Attempts were made deny the facts of the event (the assault) despite the evidence, and ADHS tried to deny me the rights granted by provisions of the Arizona Administrative Code specific to the grievance process while actively ignoring their own obligation in terms of the required investigative conduct. It was an utter fiasco for months.
But eventually, I was successful in forwarding my allegations up through the appeals process, at the expense of my own sense of peace and well being as a patient and human being. At this time, I am awaiting a final word concerning the scheduling of an administrative hearing in state court with respect for this matter. At last word, I learned that Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Grievance and Appeals officials had narrowed the elements of my original complaint to a bare minimum of the issues that I very clearly reported in my original grievance report (therein distorting the facts), so just the other day I wrote the assigned administrative judge in order to request that she review the matter as it stands at this time.
I cannot easily guess what sort of response I will get, but that is okay, because I will not let this criminality go untended, and if at all possible, I will see that this is handled in the lawful manner that it should have been in the first place.
I have also tried in good faith to refile my original complaint with Phoenix police, but with little luck to date. However, there is a new Phoenix police chief, and I intend to be in contact with soon in order to request that my original complaint be filed in accordance with law and jurisprudence.
IN CLOSING: The entirety of this sequence of events to date has been nothing short of absolute injustice and administrative ineptitude to the Nth degree. That ASH and ADHS would go to such great lengths to deny the actions of Elaine Traylor and protect her, rather than me, the patient, is sickening, and I cannot overstate the implications of this one single affair. Without a doubt, physical abuse occurs at ASH daily, and the vast majority of it is never so much as meaningfully reported, much less addressed, in fact.
Please help me put a stop to it, and feel free to contact me at any time.
paoloreed@gmail.com
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I would really love input of any kind from anybody with any interest whatsoever in the issues that I am sharing in this blog. I mean it, anybody, for I will be the first one to admit that I may be inaccurately depicting certain aspects of the conditions
at ASH, and anonymous comments are fine. In any case, I am more than willing to value anybody's feelings about my writing, and I assure you that I will not intentionally exploit or otherwise abuse your right to express yourself as you deem fit. This topic is far, far too important for anything less. Thank you, whoever you are. Peace and Frogs.