Brand Spanking New. Staff generated reporting about the current employment experience at Arizona State Hospital.

"No real real focus on recovery, just dope the people up. The people that run the hospital are out of touch with the floor staff and care very little about the patients." (See below.)

“It would be far, far easier for all involved parties, and most importantly with sincere respect for the experiences of the ASH patient community, if these people would just get their shit together once and for all.” (See below.)

Dr. Cara Christ.
Director, Arizona Dept. of Health Services
2015-the present. 

"You, Dr. Cara Christ , are 100% responsible for doing the right thing today. So do it, already."

Not a ton of time for this today. Two plus months ago, the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse received the following email:

"Hit me up if you ever want to talk about ASH... I left a few months ago...."

Following which we responded in kind, encouraging this person, whose name we will for now keep confidential, to share with this publication any information about the current conditions at ASH that they are comfortable with sharing.

And then, less then twenty actual minutes ago (noon hour, February 01, 2018), the following news byte from that same person landed on my proverbial desk:

"Ya... when I worked at the hospital last year (2017) it was awful. The only time it was staffed properly was during auditing. No real real focus on recovery, just dope the people up. The people that run the hospital are out of touch with the floor staff and care very little about the patients. The turn over due to poor leadership is the worst it has ever been, I was told by employees that have worked at the hospital for many years.”

This pretty well sets the stage- and I hope you're listening, or better yet, getting the idea once and for all, Bowen and company- for what comes next in the process of getting ASH administrators up to speed with established law and policy. No one bit of current testimony more meets my suspicions at this time then the one provided above, given a range of other information provided to me and my staff in the last seven weeks and counting.

No real focus on recovery....

The people that run the hospital... 

care very little about the patients.

THE ONLY TIME IT WAS STAFFED PROPERLY

WAS DURING AUDITING.

The above mention of auditing directly relates to the role of the federal government in working to ensure that ASH and all other state managed medical facilities  are operating in a manner consistent with the regulations by which they are  licensed. This directly includes the role of the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), which in 2014-15 intervened with ASH's operation on behalf of the patient community, on the basis of identified violations of said regulations.

And sadly, based on the buildup of evidence to the effect that ASH' administrators are arguably failing to live up to the expectations of the federal government, expectations that most defiantly extend to those of the public trust, we are here today, February 2018, again considering whether CMS shall yet again be brought in to ensure that these same violations are not continuing. If this is case, I contend it would add up to utter defiance towards the history of known problems at ASH, personified by no less the four such federal interventions in the last twenty years.

That said, I am aware of two notarized letters going out to the Baltimore, Maryland, administrative office of CMS in the next seventy two hours about current issues at ASH negatively impacting patients and thus needing immediate attention. I anticipate sharing the content of those letters once we have attained information specific to CMS' response.

Until then, I’ll just add that, while there was once a time when I would have been happy to share the details about these issues with persons like Dr. Cara Christ before taking such action, those days are long gone by now. This is 100% their own damn fault.

Pretty freaking sad all around. To know that no citizen cannot completely rely on direct communication with some of Arizona's highest ranking, state employed officials due to systemic complicity in shrouding the realities in the state's sole long term public mental health care facility, versus offering reasonable transparency specific to the issues raised in such communications. Wherein, even a patient, be it myself circa 2011-2012 (and today, as a former patient of ASH), or recently discharged patient John Mancini, or the patient who exercised their civil right to express legitimate concern about the questionable character of ASH's long standing chief medical officer, will all but definitely be denied any opportunity to contribute to bettering the substandard care practices and conditions there.

ASH patients (and patients in any type of hospital) are frontline voices that I contend need to be highly valued by any entity sincerely concerned about the care practices and conditions there; this given that it is the patients who most fully experience the general atmosphere at ASH, and who also are the ones who are most directly affected by shortsighted or otherwise questionable issues at ASH. It would do well for state health care officials to recognize this, too- it might just keep them out of hot water for a change.

For now, however, the denial of the patient voice occurs throughout the entirety of the legally required grievance process, beginning right there at ASH at any time a current patient produces such documents (at which point, consequent retaliation may well arise- it happened to me, that’s for sure), and on up through the Arizona Department of Health's Office of Grievances and Appeals, right into the state's administrative court.

I can attest, and as such have reported in this publication since April, 2012, to the fact that, no matter how perfectly (as per protocol) I as an ASH patient produced and filed such grievances, which generally included reasonable if not irrefutable evidence in support of concerns I expressed in those filings, each and every entity obligated to handle grievances as per law and policy patently failed to adhere to their given responsibilities in relation to the grievance process.

It was obvious to me then, that had I not been a patient at ASH, there is no way that those filings would have been so radically mismanaged by Hospital staff and ADHS officials, which did exacerbate my struggles with my own mental and emotional diagnosis while I was an actual ASH patient.

“The people that run the hospital are out of touch with the floor staff and care very little about the patients.”

What is most disturbing, is that this nature of abject refusal to hear and the voice(s) of individuals affected by mental illness is 100% consistent with the overall discriminations against such individuals, as personified by known history in this context. These failures present textbook negligence, as well, and further underlie just how and why persons disabled by serious mental illness remain even today well below the radar of public sentiment. Equally disturbing that, in just those places where many Americans might expect the rights of the mentally ill to most be preserved and protected- hospital settings- the misbehavior and misconduct of highly entrusted health care professionals are directly furthering the presence in American culture of ongoing discrimination towards the mentally ill. And that, as a matter of plain fact, it is the policy of ASH administrators to do about whatever they have to in order to maintain this specific issue.

“What happens at ASH stays at ASH.”

This is precisely where ASH current CEO, Dr. Aaron Bowen, so recently screwed up (and that is putting it nicely, Bowen). By interrupting the statement of a patient expressing concerns about ASH during a public meeting of the ASH Human Rights Committee in November, 2017, and demanding (as documented) that the patient not openly state those concerns as per his right to free speech under the U.S. Constitution, this highly entrusted health care professional willfully tried to keep the history of “his CMO” secret or otherwise underreported to the public today, despite the fact that Dingle’s record of sexual predation is public. As such, Bowen also proved himself as being one more contributor to the contemporary history of discriminations against the mentally ill. Seeking, as such, to keep the seriously mentally “in their place”, where (if Bowen and his type have their way) this population of disabled Americans have little to no recourse in defense of there rights and associated care needs in state managed mental hospitals, and beyond in the greater American community.

One does not need to be an attorney to recognize that Americans are legally permitted to express one’s personal opinion(s), so long as the expression is an opinion, in fact, and does not contain specific assertions that can be proved untrue. I am comfortable in assuming that Bowen knows this, too, which only furthers my suspicion that, in Bowen’s view, seriously mentally ill persons are not deserving of the same rights and protections that all Americans are deserving of. This does, in no uncertain terms, represent discrimination and prejudice against persons disabled by serious mental illness, bottom line (and in my opinion), which is occurring in violation of the provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act, right there at ASH.

I am affected and disabled by serious mental illness. I am aware that Dr. Steven Dingle has an established public record of sexual predation that he willfully imposed on females working under his direct authority. As such, I fully agree with the opinion of at least one current ASH patient, that:

 Dr. Steven Dingle is a sexual predator. 

Go ahead, try and challenge me about this, Bowen, Honig. See how that works out for you.

In expressing my opinion about Dingle, and in contradiction to the statements of Dr. Cara Christ and ADHS, I am in no way expressing inflammatory or libelous opinion, or in any way asserting something untrue. This applies to the entire history of this blog publication, too, wherein no elements of the details provided in articles have included untruths specific to my experiences as an ASH patient, and were not expressed as anything other then opinion, or based, in fact, upon anything other then my personal experiences at ASH. Consistent with these facts, my learned opinion of Dingle  specific to this matter flows from his known and public record of sexual harassment (including actual touching) imposed by him upon lesser empowered women. I fully believe that this history meets the basic ingredients sexual predation. Wherein persons with disproportionate power or influence over the interests of less empowered persons are just the ones who, at times, are known to actively engage in seeking opportunity to sexually harass and abuse such lesser empowered persons. I do, thus, see this as textbook sexual predation, and I could care less for how long ago the act of sexual predation occurred, in fact.

As described in the article, “Fundamental Fact #2: Of Laxman Patel, a case study”, (this publication 01/28/18), I was personally subjected to sexual abuse by a much older family member when I was six or seven years old. This abuse occurred via the ability of that family member to use their given authority to engage in deceptive coercion and exploitation over me, drawing me into something that, on the basis of my age, I had no understanding of. As such, this family member did engage in sexual predation that is all but identical to the history of Dingle (the primary difference lies in the fact that Dingle’s victims were adults who- unlike me- possessed awareness of the depravity of his behavior, and the capability to do something about it, which is precisely why he was subsequently sanctioned by the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners). And while this adult member of my family engaged in this sexual abuse about fifty years ago, that person is most definitely a sexual predator, even today; even today, I am experiencing the harmful affects of that occurrence in my personal life. Bottom line.

The aforementioned pattern of abject negligence in the ADHS grievance process extending well into the administrative offices of ADHS/BHS, willful  attempts to deny the patients at ASH their First Amendment right to free speech, and the related violation of the expectation of such disabled persons that their voice will be respected and heard, was exposed immediately after that November HRC meeting, when state employed attorneys, including but not limited to Greg Honig of the Office of the AZ Attorney General, emailed HRC and attempted to force that committee to keep the involved patient's statement out of the meeting's record and minutes.

And as I have said before, these people will go around the mountain and back in order to thwart the process of any good faith reporting of issues at ASH. This is what we are witnessing right now, no doubt about it, and it is high time to bring this to a halt.

While I've the chance, before- that is- we dive headfirst back into this project after the last thirty days, I'll just say that it all gets pretty darn tedious. I speak for myself, and staff of this publication. Again, and again, and again hearing, receiving, and otherwise learning about the same accursed issues that have gotten ASH and ADHS into trouble just about every four years for the last two decades.

It would far, far easier for all involved parties, and most importantly with sincere respect for the experiences of the ASH patient community, if these people would just get their shit together once and for all.

 Until they do, however.... Fair warning.

IN CLOSING: It is also sad that only staff generated reports, or news reports, and so on, tend to draw the needed attention to patient abuses in state managed hospitals such as ASH. But that is just the way it is.

For now. 

As such, I am willing to say that the above statement of a recent ASH employee may well spark a bit of anxiety in the executive offices there. Or not (I hardly care). But the fact is, not even this will actually light the requisite fire under the asses of these people, or otherwise compel them to do the right thing while they still can. 

I have seen it before, and still see it today, just about anywhere I look. State employed bureaucrats, regardless of their given education or actual titles, are generally too lethargic in terms of their obligations to the public trust, too inept if not ignorant with regard for the rights of persons affected by mental illness, and basically incapable of taking seriously the significance of patient or staff generated evidence of the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH. All in order to maintain their unethical approaches to managing places like ASH, wherein no reasonably provided information about what it means to do the right thing will influence their behavior. 

These same factors underlie the very presence of all such issues in the first place, much as they always have in the far broader history of state managed mental hospitals, in Arizona and beyond. 

It is- all of it- STILL THAT BAD. 

paoloreed@gmail.com