Saturday, September 29, 2018

"Hypersexual" Dr. Steven Dingle.

This is one of several partial revisions of a prior article, published in its original form on December 08, 2014. 

INTRODUCTION SEPTEMBER 2018

This is about one man working in what is largely a man's world; the bureaucracy of the Arizona Department of Health Services construct (ADHS), that is, and most every other form of modern systems of government and administration. I herein call again on Dr. Cara Christ to stand alone and away from the men who surround her- above and below- and in a manner consistent with her most sincere sense of conscience, that SHE take direct action in support of the care needs and rights of the ASH patient community. Refuse for once to allow these men to run your show. 

This will be tough. We all know this. But it is your show, it is your direct obligation beyond anyone else's, and trust me when I say that these Rat Bastards are not going to come to your aid when it is truly needed. 

Nor will I, beyond these writings. Unless- perhaps- if you were to ask, for as always, I welcome direct communication. For I am not- do not have to be- an enemy, in fact. 

So stand up and be a woman, already. 


Dr. Cara Christ
2015- September 2018 Director.
Arizona Department of Health Services.
DISCUSSION SEPTEMBER 29, 2018

Given the highly intensive attention directed towards men in power who as a matter of cultural routine sexually abuse women, personified by not only by the at-last(!) conviction of comedian Bill Cosby or the controversy surrounding President Donald Trump's latest pick for the US Supreme Court, Brett Michael Kavanaugh (while Trump too is an alleged sexual maniac, as per numerous testimony provided by women over the years), we are again compelled to direct focus in our own right on long time chief medical officer at Arizona State Hospital (ASH), Dr. Steven Dingle. 

I would ask that ADHS Director  Dr. Cara Christ consider the testimony provided by a number of  women in recent months specific to the long lasting harm and impacts imposed upon women victimized by sexual harassment and abuse by men. Such women have not only put their given careers and reputation at stake, but in some cases, have risked the very lives of themselves and their families in good faith attempts to see that the issue of sexual abuse meaningfully addressed. 

This itself is a very critical health issue affecting women, children, and even men who in any way have been exposed to the depraved misbehavior of such men, who for whatever reason have no understanding of how deeply sexual abuse of others damages the emotional and psychological well being of victims. The period of how long ago such misbehavior may have occurred, in fact, is irrelative to the fact that these abusers are at minimum lacking empathy for others, and are most generally affected by sexual preoccupation and self-regulation problems. While trauma and negative emotions suffered by victims range from shame, guilt, depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress, personality disruptions, attachment issues, and addiction.

I know that you, as a licensed medical doctor, are fully aware of these factors. I find it very difficult to understand how you, in your position as the most entrusted public health care official in the state of Arizona, would willingly contribute to the historic patterns of denial by which sexual abuse has been present in human culture across the board. And yet here we have it, documented on the official record at this time, your direct defense of known sexual abuser who under your authority has been granted opportunity to care for highly vulnerable adults.

Below is a revised and again published 2014 article exposing the plain fact that Dingle was found guilty of and sanctioned for having sexually women working directly under his authority. As with the vast majority of information shared in this blog publication to date, this is factual and in no uncertain terms a continually ignored reality specific to the depraved character of the one ASH primary physician with more responsibility than any other, outside, that is, of current ASH chief executive officer, Dr. Aaron Bowen.

A related fact of deep concern is that, as recently as fall, 2017, Bowen willfully acted in a manner to diminish Dingle's indisputable recond in context, by aggressively violating the first amendment right of an ASH patient who voiced their own given concern about the issue in formal meeting of the ASH Human Rights Committee (now referred to as the ASH Independent Oversight Committee; IOC). Bowen did state at the time, by blatantly interrupting this patient as they civilly expressed this concern, "I will not allow anyone to call my CMO a sexual predator in public!" 

This singular action is on point with more recent evidence to the effect that Bowen has been denying IOC access to incident and accident reports. Such data is not only public record (as is Dingle's record as a sexual abuser of women), but further and as per state law, to be provided to IOC on a monthly basis. Likewise, in the 2017 ASH "Annual Report," (released in December, 2017) Bowen failed to include a near death assault (a stabbing) by one ASH patient on another. Such incidents are of critical form, as such, may represent any range of shortfalls in the operation of ASH, and do pose grave risk to the general safety of the ASH patient community as a whole. By willfully omitting this particular detail, Bowen has arguably furthered such potentially fatal incidents in his own right. 

Consistent with the unlawful misconduct of  Bowen over the last eight or so months, the record at this time also includes Dr. Cara Christ's willful role in suppressing public record. Christ, of course, is the current director of Arizona's entire public health care system. Specifically, immediately following Bowen's attack on the above mentioned patient's first amendment right, Christ and at least one state employed attorney in her office complicitly sought to strike the patient's expression in the public record. What, may we ask, was the purpose of all involved parties in this matter? Nothing short of the hope that, regardless of direct impact on the ASH patient community, such unlawful misconduct be condoned, in patent defiance of all related law and policy at both the state and federal level.  

I almost hate to say it, given its horrific theme, but this is all 100% on point with the willingness of ASH administrators (including Steven Dingle) in May, 2011, to deny the public knowledge of former ASH patient Jesus Rincon Murrieta's presence in greater Phoenix area following his having violently escaped ASH; which did, in fact, directly contribute to the tragic and very preventable death of April Mott in August of that same year. Wherein, even though local Phoenix media was made aware of Murrieta's actual escape only days after it occurred, ASH administrators flagrantly lied when a reporter from the Arizona Republic newspaper inquired about the incident. Allowing Murrieta to run amok in Phoenix for over ten full weeks, at which point, he murdered Ms. Mott in her own apartment. 

Back to Dingle himself, then, who was hired by ADHS following have been found guilty of abusing women working under his direct authority, in violation of state and federal law. (See Arizona Board of Medical Examiners investigation #9412 below). This highly questionable employment occurred in a manner on point other such diminishments of the significance of sexual abuse.  

The May, 2018, issue of National Geographic, for only one example, includes an article entitled "Rid the Sciences of Harassars," which was written by University of Illinois anthropological professor, Dr. Kathryn Clancy. Dr Clancy has conducted formal research on sexual abuse in the sciences for close to decade, and this article, delves into the plain fact that, despite the emergence of the #METOO movement and other such efforts of address sexual abuse of women over the last few years,  male scientists most often avoid the same degree of oversight and accountability that other members of society face when identified in context, including in the professions. 

Medicine is science, and Bowen, Christ and Dingle are all scientists. Any coincidence, then? I think not. 

The relation of this fact to current issues about sexual abuse is glaring. Ad yet, here we have it.

But what is most disturbing about Dingle's history,  perhaps, is the willingness of Cara Christ to snub the significance of this issue; effectively furthering the issue as it has long stood in American society and as it still stands today. Bad enough, in other words,  that males are behind the gist of this matter, without even considering that at least some professional women of authority are basically on board with underlying realities most at stake. To my knowledge at this time, Christ is the sole female directly involved in defending/denying Dingle's known depravity.

If this is how she wants, then so be it. One can only question whether or not Christ in her own experience has ever been subjected to sexual abuse. Or, conversely, whether she has a daughter or daughters of her own. Whatever the case, her attempt to defend Dingle's indisputable status as a sexual abuser of women shocks my basic sense of jurisprudence and conscience. She has directly contributed to a furthering of this issue in American society, and for this, she should be ashamed. 

Shame? Remorse? Sense of duty? Not one of these elements of human character apply to the behavior persons affected by sociopathic tendencies. While I am not in any sort of position to formally determine (diagnose) the psychological status persons historically involved in the corruption at ASH of any other like public mental health care facility, I have every right to suggest that something is deeply fishy going on when we consider the patterns that I have discussed today, and in numerous other articles published herein since April, 2012. 

We are talking here about highly educated, highly entrusted members of public society. Persons granted a great degree of responsibility and authority in direct relation to the needs and rights of individuals disabled by serious mental illness; and who may well appear in all other settings to be of reasonable character of ethos, including in terms of family and community. No matter much a lay person I may in relation to medical diagnosis, these baseline characteristics do meet a significant aspect of the profile(s) of sociopaths.  

Adding to this baseline, the bare bones fact is that, only when such persons are granted access to overtly secretive settings such as ASH, do they willfully engage in disregarding the standards by which they are licensed and employed. Safe haven in no uncertain terms for persons fully aware that their depravity would never survive in the public milieu,  as exemplified by former-since incarcerated ASH security guard, Roger Forney, who even upon being hired by ADHS was already a known sexual abuser of children. 

The extent to which they wrongfully utilize such employment is extensive,  and includes exploitation of laws that protect patient privacy as one means to get away with willful breaches of of common decency. Misbehavior in its ugliest form, which can and does effectively contaminate the possibility of patient recovery. 

Even if such persons lack meaningful awareness of applicable law and policy (which Bowen has exhibited more then once), we must remember that they are healthcare professionals; doctors, who are well educated in relation to healthcare ethics and the most fundamental precepts of civil behavior, and not to mention the Hippocratic Oath in itself. 

While the lawyers, the goddamned health department lawyers who do possess reasonable awareness of applicable law and policy, engage in defending this misconduct as a matter of standard practice, as personified by Joel Rudd.   

This is, has to be sickness of some kind. To the extent that each one of these people has no justification whatsoever to oppose these facets of required conduct; knowingly, willfully, openly and at times so brazenly that I find it vicious, going about repeated exhibitions of patient abuse in all its forms.

It is not enough to have witnessed and experienced actual physical and psychological abuses of ASH patients, as I have. It is not enough to discern the breadth to which such misbehavior reaches in terms of human rights, as I have since familiarizing myself with applicable law and policy. It requires the ability of entrusted state officials and employees to admit their own shortfalls. 

But these people, the ones I am identifying today.... They are sick... No less so then persons who cannot control their sexual behavior, be it Cosby, Kavanaugh, Forney, and so on.
-----------------------------
  
"Hypersexual" Dr. Steven Dingle: The Document.

Arizona Board of Medical Examiners Investigation #9412.
Mark R. Speicher, Elaine Hugginin presiding. 


The following is a partial reprint of an article originally published on December 08, 2014. In the original, we were unable to bring up the formal hearing report specific to sexual predator Dr. Steven Dingle's being found guilty of sexual abuse and harassment in May, 2997. Thanks to the good folks at ABC Ch 15 (Phoenix), however, we are now able to share that document in full. 

"Oh, never mind... I was just being my normal hyper sexual self."
Dr. Steven Dingle.  


Wherein, on May 8, 1997, the long running chief medical officer at Arizona State Hospital was found guilty of violating state and federal law. This after having sexually abused no less then four women under his authority at a Phoenix Hospital. When the stove got too hot for this dirt bag in 1995, he resigned his position at a private Phoenix hospital, and holed up like so many other rapscallions (Cory Nelson, Donna Noriega come to mind) in the Arizona Department of Health Services.
   

As I have clarified more then once in past articles, Dr. Steven Dingle was party to all aspects of wrongdoing and associated substandard conditions at Arizona State Hospital circa 2010-2015. As the chief medical officer, assigned as such to be fully aware of all of ASH's day to day operational features, this is simply the case.

The breadth of this wrongdoing is expansive. But I am willing to point to the covered up escape of ASH patient Jesus Rincon Murietta in 2011 as a glaring example of what some of these people have gotten away with; wherein Dingle and his associate medical and administrative staff blatantly failed to meet the psychiatric medical standard of Duty to Warn the public. By allowing this fact to be shrouded in the corrupted minds of ASH's medical staff, their behavior did as a matter of plain fact contribute to the subsequent death April Mott. Given his status as chief medical officer, wherein he has full authority over all formal medical operational decisions, no one such staff person has as much responsibility as Dingle does in this context.
Forney's 2013 mug shot.

Similarly, oh so much so, we only have to look at the fact that ASH employed a known- as in convicted prior to his employment at ASH- child sexual predator, one Roger James Forney (2010-2013- he is now in prison);  as well as more recent data about sexual assaults and other like issues that ABC Channel 15 has produced on the public light. I could not make this up if I had to. It is still... beyond me, these people.

Even today, Dingle is avoiding reasonable accountability.  Because his immediate supervisor, Aaron Bowen, for whatever reason doesn't feel that any of these facts matter when it comes to the welfare of ASH's patient community.  Which is precisely what Dingle and his kind desire, seeking places such as the Arizona State Hospital to engage in their nefarious misbehavior, where the vast majority of what goes on is kept secret.


"What happens at ASH stays at ASH"


......As I heard it said by staff on far more then one occasion.

Dingle and company love this shit. It gives them the opportunity to inflict, inflict, inflict. He is an abuser, and this pattern of conduct is 100% consistent with known abuser behavior across the board.

I would ask that ASH chief executive officer Dr. Aaron Bowen and Arizona Department of Health director Dr. Cara Christ take into account the fact that in this day in age, the presence of abusers such as Dingle are being taken to account, in government, media, and on the sordid story goes. Knowing all we do about Dingle's abject lack of character, what grants these highly entrusted state employees the right to turn a blind eye to the risks associated with this Rat Bastard?

Do the right thing. While you can.
------------------
IN CLOSING SEPTEMBER 29, 2018.


Paolo Jack Reed.
I have made clear my sincere wish that Cara Christ take a stand as a woman in her own right. I have made clear how that can be made so, though it is hardly an easy thing. That I do not have to be the enemy.

Instead, then, if it helps... Please, all of you, in unison, cooperatively, as a team, whatever.... Just do the right thing for a change. 

Remember where you come from, what you have been taught. Turn a cold shoulder to the failures of bureaucracy when it comes to the needs of your clientele. Look to your own, your children, your family, your community for uncolored guidance. Read your bible, review your manuals of conduct, do whatever it takes. 

Just try to make doing the right thing a matter of standard practice. At all times, in all circumstances. 

Just try it. You might like it.  

I'll say up front, that I am hardly perfect myself. That I too have run afoul of the law. That I too have failed more than once to do the right thing. But I seek to do better at all times, day in, day out. Can you, too? 

It this really too much to ask? I mean, really! You are all reasonably intelligent. You must possess some ability to make good choices. You must have some sense of civility in relation to others. Where in this emerging scandal are you actually going to knock off your shit? How much more evidence will pile up before you are awakened from your slothlike mentality? 

And where will you go when it all hits the fan?

It is a matter of choice, all of it, and the choice is yours today. 

As it always has been.  

paoloreed@gmail.com

Friday, September 21, 2018

Of United States District Court case #2:18-cv-02845-BSB. Defendant: Dr. Cara Christ.

Random notes, emerging data.

"Dear  Cory, Donna, Joel, and Will: I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so." PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse. June 06, 2016.


Will Humble
Former-since fled spring 2015
ADHS Director.

Donna Noriega, Cory Nelson, Jeff Goldbloom.
Fired spring 2015!

"This only makes it more obvious that they are up to no good." Dr. Edna Suzanne, September 21, 2018. 


Dr. Cara Christ.
-CURRENT-
Director, Arizona Department
of Health Services.

INTRODUCTION: As of Thursday, September 20, 2018, the following issues have been raised by Arizona based advocacy resources.


- Significant gaps in providing the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) Independent Oversight Committee (IOC) with incident/accident records and reports, in violation of the terms of the very statute by which IOC exists. This issue is totally on par with the merits of the above lawsuit, wherein Hospital administrators are willfully refusing to provide the Arizona Center for Disability Law with requested patient treatment records, in gross violation of state and federal law. Clearly, this has everything to do with the intent of CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen and his immediate staff members to suppress data about issues needing oversight and accountability, 100% consistent with the patterns exposed circa 2012-2105, including in this blog publication.

Yes, then, it can only be the wish of these highly entrusted state employees to further the longstanding theme of "What happens at ASH stays at ASH." They do it with impunity, defying established law and  the right of the public to have reasonable awareness of the quality of care at ASH (or lack thereof). They do it, the lot of them, in egregious violation of the rights of the ASH patient community, and in patent rejection of patient safety; thus getting themselves sued yet again. 

In a context of no remorse and a gaping absence of health care ethics exhibited by trusted public officials, this is all consistent with societally sanctioned sanctioned  sociopathy. The willingness of entrusted public  officials to flaunt all elements of civil duty, while smiling and tending to charming good looks as though nothing at all is amiss. This somewhat  only survives to such a degree  when we are looking at the rights and care needs of the seriously mentally ill. History tells us this. The fact remains that both the willingness to act in this way, and the ability to freaking get away with it, flows from abject disregard for the interests of disabled Americans, even this day in age. Disregard that extends into cultural and societal obliviousness. Allowing persons of such depravity safe haven, in effect. 

On a formal level: All ASH patients are disabled under state and federal law. Any form(s) of discrimination on the basis of disability is a patent violation of the provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act. Which is to say that, when ASH CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen got away with willfully denying one ASH patient's exercise of their given civil rights, it was due to such discrimination. And in terms of the fact that Bowen is willfully engaged in violating law and policy specific to public information and the rights of disabled ASH patients in general....  

Read my lips: It is known, you are exposed. 
    
Dr. Pervaiz Akhter
Former-since fled
ASH psychiatrist.


Failures to abide by the required terms of one-on-one and/or two-on-one patient observations, as per even ASH/ADHS's own protocol and related standards of psychiatric care and safety, which directly relates to the preventable death of Barbara West and the above lawsuit. At least two other patient deaths were as equally preventable as the death of Mrs. West, both of whom- Chris Blackman and Mary "Franky" Adams- are personal friends of mine. This particular realm of  substandard care practice(s) extends as well to the murder of April Mott in 2011, wherein all involved parties (including ASH's long time chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle) put the safety of the greater public well behind their own depraved interests. 100% consistent with the issue of suppressed data about the the current conditions at ASH.

It is evident as always that ASH medical providers and administrators, and their counterparts in the ADHS construct, have no sincere concern for the significance of these tragedies. One can only wonder how these people would feel were it be one of their family who died in such manner, due to the failure of professional medical providers to simply do their jobs to the fullest of their given ability. For too too long, the substandard care practices in ASH and other such public mental health care institutions, and for too too long, they have gotten away with it. Barbara West was admitted to ASH on the basis of her openly stated desire to commit suicide. As per ASH's own protocol and standards specific to established psychiatric care on the most basic of levels, she was to be carefully tended to, and closely watched over at all times.

Within weeks of her admission to ASH, however.... And now she is dead, and her family is suffering because of it.   




Patient generated resistance to staff misconduct, 2011.

- Increases in on-campus responses by fully armed Phoenix police when ASH patients act out in a manner consistent with their given emotional/psychological struggles. Having armed police officials appear within the walls and fences of ASH on a regular basis poses risk of harm to patients affected by PTSD and other like disorders. Bottom line, ASH is a hospital, and it is shortages of security staff. This is an issue originally created by former-since fired ASH CEO Cory Nelson, and which now stands as how and why Hospital administrators would be willing to call on public law enforcement to do the job that ASH security are responsible for. 

In anything but the most serious circumstances, there is no just cause in demanding that public law enforcement  handle patient behavior at ASH. Such public resources are primarily needed to enforce law on behalf of the greater Phoenix community, and not on behalf of the selfish and shortsighted desires of ASH's administration. Bad enough, too, this undue imposement on Phoenix police, without even considering the implications of having deadly weapons (firearms) present within the realm of the ASH operation. Meanwhile, where in the hell is ASH security? Are William Bugby and Randy Lewis incapable of doing their jobs? Or are they merely cowards with little in the way of professional character, as has been suggested more then once by 
members of their own staff, arguably consistent with former-since incarcerated ASH security guard Roger Forney.

Roger  Forney, 2013.
Twice convicted
sexual predator
of children.
ASH security guard
2011-13.


- Limited access of patients to the Hospital grounds, also known as the "patient mall." The grounds of ASH are fully fenced. When the founder of this publication  was hospitalized at ASH, such limitations were not necessary. This, too, an issue relating to shortages in Hospital security staff, an issue that only came about due to the ineptitude of former-since fired Hospital administrators circa 2011-2103. I attest that being restricted in the day room areas of ASH's various treatment units can in some cases be countertherapteutic and in no way beneficial to the recovery hopes of the ASH patient community in general. Nothing much to do but watch television, while outside the day room windows Arizona's sunshine dominates. Resultant patient stress and anxiety, and the consequent occurrence of patient-on-patient and patient-on-staff violence. What a waste of the taxpayer money that went into developing ASH's outside grounds. What a travesty of health care.

In terms of understanding the experience(s), persons such as Aaron Bowen are clearly out of touch with this area of medical care. No surprise, really, given the fact that he is far more a bureaucrat than anything else. Representative, ergo,  of the graphic disconnect between ASH/ADHS and the Hospital's patient community that I was made aware of as an ASH patient in my own right. This and other like conditions create a highly unhealthy environment for most if not all ASH patient-consumers. I attest that, due to the dysfunction of the formal grievance process and the willingness of ASH administrators (Dr. Steven Dingle and Cory Nelson specifically speaking) to retaliate against me on the basis of my speaking out about staff misconduct via that process, these such conditions have left me with an diagnosed anxiety disorder that I was not affected by prior to arriving at ASH. As such, undeniable exacerbation of my struggles with emotional and psychological problems, in a freaking hospital of all places.


Cory Nelson, 2014
Former-since fired
ASH CEO.
COMING SOON: Dear  Aaron, Cara, Lisa, Greg and Tom:

I hate to say I told you so. But I told you so.

IN CLOSING: Why in the hell would ASH administrators such as CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen choose to deny AZ's public mental health advocacy resources access to public records? What has he to hide? And how can it be that licensed state employed attorneys and other like officials would opt to get on board with it all?

Outside, that is, a now glaring willingness of these people to further prevalent incidents and accidents that only occur due to operational ineptitude, in harmony with Hospital staff incompetence that has led to the preventable deaths of more then one ASH patient-consumer in recent years. Even more significantly, this crap, the consequent secreting of a simply unkowable range of other such issues. As in, who knows just how deeply or how far this wrongdoing goes, in fact?


Tom Betlach
-CURRENT-
Director
 Arizona Health Care Cost
Containment System.

Herein we know that on any given day issues of critical concern at ASH are being willfully hidden from public scrutiny. This, despite deserving immediate attention merely as a means to optimize patient care. The entire ASH patient community is at risk of suffering harm as a consequence of this singular area of administrative misconduct and unlawfulness. 

There is simply no way that anyone working in direct relation to the operation of ASH has no familiarity with it all. They are all in on it, Dingle, Bowen, Bugby, Christ, Betlach... the list is extensive. Again. 

It is that simple. It is that serious. It is that bad. September, 2018.

Obviously, Dr. Aaron Bowen and his various ne'erdowells have little understanding of the merits of state and federal law by in this specific  matter. As one of my current providers stated in recent days, "This only makes it more obvious that they are up to no good."  Or as Cory Nelson so eloquently put it away back in 2014, "This is the sort of shit that gets people like me fired!" 

Obvious, indeed, and yet somehow these people just don't get it.

We know that Dr. Cara Christ is actively engaged in putting the interests of Bowen  and company ahead of those of ASH patient-consumers. She, the most highly empowered and entrusted health care official in the entire state of Arizona, does this in complicity with other highly entrusted state health care representatives, such as Tom Betlach, while also knowing that all ASH patient-consumers are disabled by mental illness- vulnerable as such to abuse and exploitation- and yet directly feeding into ongoing substandard care practices and conditions that have historically harmed disabled individuals across the board. While knowing, as well, that her immediate predecessor, Will Humble, attempted to dupe the public in identical fashion, prior- that is- to the 2012-2015 exposure of scandal and corruption at ASH. 

No less then three crucially needed federal interventions in the last 20 years. These people- all of them!- know this. 

How long will it go on this time around? How many more patients will have to suffer preventable death due to it all? How many more members of the greater public will be harmed? How many more families will have to suffer? These things is I wonder today.    

Moronic in character, inane in perspective, all of it just that bad: Bureaucrats being bureaucrats, the lot of them. Blindly groping their way forward as though lemmings, overtly playing into utter ineptitude as though senseless, and directly harming persons in lesser position of power as though devils.

Be ready, Rat Bastards, for another major onslaught of crucially needed oversight and accountability. And if we the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital have anything to do with it, persons directly involved in this scandal as it further will not avoid criminal prosecution this time around. This, we promise. 


paoloreed@gmail.com

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Remember James Boyd.


The 2014 murder of James Boyd, Albuquerque, NM. 













"I have never and nor do I today seek to unjustly persecute any other human being in any given context. This is simply not my character, bottom line. But at that same time, I have a known history in terms of public interest advocacy and activism, one that far predates my diagnosis of serious mental illness. It is thus apropos that I now seek opportunity to identify issues that I know to be harmful to the welfare of the ASH patient community. Likewise, in terms of cultural and societal discrimination against persons affected and disabled by mental illness cross the board, I am more then willing to stand against whatever elements of this area of prejudice I feel contributes to the issue. 

This is the least I can do, I feel, given my education, strengths and attributes, and the privileges I have been afforded as an American in this day in age.  It blows my mind- even today- how deeply corrupted the realm of public mental health care is, in graphic defiance of established and known history about just how deeply persons affected have been abused and harmed, arguably since the dawn of documented evidence to the effect."

(From our article  published on September 17, 2018) 

On March 16, 2014, a homeless man, James Boyd, affected by serious mental illness, known as such by both local law enforcement (Albuquerque, police Department- "APD"), as well as state health department officials (James had been repeatedly treated in several New Mexico psychiatric facilities, including NM State Hospital, Las Vegas, NM), was illegally camped on the SE outskirts of Albuquerque, NM. Nearby homeowners, none of whom stated any actual conflict with James, had complained about his presence there (although his campsite was over 1/4 mile away from any nearby neighborhood) to local authorities on more then one occasion.

The subsequent police response led to what many residents of the city characterize as murder. James, holding a four inch table knife at this side while remaining in one specific position no less then 50 feet from all involved officers, was clearly in a psychotic break triggered by the overly aggressive behavior of the those officers, which as the above photo shows, numbered at six, all of whom had their weapons aimed at James as he expressed clear confusion and lack of understanding about what what was actually going on. 


For no justifiable reason, officers fired on James with both assault style rifles, shotguns, and revolvers, hitting him fourteen total times. He did not die immediately, rather, began moaning and writhing in pain, leading officers to release a police dog as a further means to control James, in spite of him never actually posing clear risk of harm to those officers. 


During the period 2011-2014, Albuquerque police were responsible for at least 23 arguably unjustified killings of Albuquerque citizens, over half of whom were known to be affected by serious mental illness. This general crisis, more then somewhat typified by the killing of James Boyd, led to a US Department of Justice investigation that determined APD's policies and directly associated lack of training amounted to deeply abject form of overuse of deadly force.


This also led to the formation of the citizen represented group, APD Forward in June, 2014, which I was able to take part in at that time. Knowing as I did that persons affected by mental illness were disproportionately at risk of being killed by local law enforcement was the primary impetus to my taking serious interest in it all. Again, the least I can do in this phase of my life.


While I had been away for over a decade, New Mexico is my home. I attended both high school and college in Albuquerque, as well. As such, it was a sickening thing indeed to return and come upon this debacle after having spent time in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility, Arizona State Hospital. Where, as I have extensively written about for the last six years, psychiatric physicians and administrators act in tandem and in complicity with state health care officials in order to get away with violations of law and policy. They engage in this egregious misconduct on the simple basis of persons affected and disabled by mental illness under their direct care, or lack thereof. Which, as it turned out following several state and federal legal proceedings, , Albuquerque police also got away with in relation to the murder of James Boyd. Sickening.


IN CLOSING: It is alarming to say the least for anyone of reasonable intelligence that someone like Dr. Steven Dingle with the responsibilities- and power quite frankly- associated with the care needs and rights of persons disabled by mental illness has been accused if not found guilty of egregious misconduct. This extends as well to ASH's chief quality control officer, Lisa Wynn, and it only follows, any number of other employees at ASH who have not yet been identified as miscreants. The most shining example of this issue, of course, is Roger Forney, was was hired by ADHS despite his known record as a sexual predator of children. 

Abuses of power are precisely what we are witnessing at this time. Personified no better then when ASH CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen very aggressively violated the first amendment rights of an ASH patient who raised his or her concern about Dingle's public record a sexual abuser of women working under his direct authority, and the willful attempt of ADHS attorney Greg Honig who in clear complicity with ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ attempted to strike that incident record from the minutes of November, 2017, meeting of the ASH Human Rights Committee (now known as the ASH Independent Oversight Committee).

How much more attention might it take to get these people in alignment with their distinct obligations specific to the public trust? To hell with law and policy, in context, it is humanity that we are talking about herein. 


Get With It, Already! 
 paoloreed@gmail.com

     



Monday, September 17, 2018

The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse.


NOTE: The following is the full text of my first article in this blog publication, produced less then six weeks after my February 21, 2012, discharge from the Arizona State Hospital. Allow it be understood, as well, that all elements of my overall allegations are just that- allegations- and drawn from first person experience.

Hello. My name is PJ Reed. 

paoloreed@gmail.com. 


I have little to fall upon in trying to introduce this blog beyond my immediate past history. But I will state here and now, that this is about the radically dismal state of affairs at the Arizona State Hospital, where doctors, nurses and technicians alike act in unison on a daily basis in abusing the fundamental human rights of patients in a manner and to a degree that is undeniably beyond acceptability in this day in age; and Hospital administrators, as well as Arizona Department of Health Services representatives go out of their way to both distort the truth about this matter as well as effectively condone the misconduct via their egregious unwillingness to do anything about it. I very recently discharged from the Arizona State Hospital (ASH), and I attest to these things. My accounting of my experiences while at ASH is drawn from pure and straight forward, simple fact(s), and I am willing to publicize the very most private aspects of my life story as it stands today simply because the patient abuse at ASH has to stop. ASH administrative officers and clinical staff are currently working in clear complicity with state officials in order to allow ASH to operate at a level of sub-standard mental health care, and they are getting away with it. Somebody has to do something about it, bottom line, and this single reality is what compels me today to introduce this blog to the publics' eye.    


                       My story in relation to ASH began as follows:



In May, 2010, I awoke at approximately 9:30 a.m. from my fourth attempt to commit suicide on a hillside overlooking the west side of Tucson, Arizona. The early summer sun already had the temperature somewhere in the high 90s. I was dehydrated and extremely tired after having ingested a full bottle of Ibuprofen and three full 40 oz. bottles of cheap, high octane beer. I had about $13 in my pocket; and I had to make a choice of whether or not to walk back down into the city and re-up on my supplies in order to give it one last go (knowing for the first time that I should definitely should have purchased and used Tylenol PM, rather than trying to get a good deal by purchasing Ibuprofen, which had been on sale the previous day...Idiot!), or to go about looking into other options given my very limited circumstances. I had left all of my belongings behind (but for one large backpack of clothing that was stolen from me approximately 36 hours before by two guys at a bus stop), and beyond the dust in my nostrils and hair, I had only the clothing on my back, in essence. 


As I walked out of the cactus and brush filled desert hills, I was sick with dehydration and general weariness caused by the effect(s) of overdose; and it occurred to me that were I to re-up on my basic supplies, with the idea of another attempt in mind, I would have to turn right around and hoof it back up into the mountains, with the attendant realization to I simply wasn't up to it. So I pondered that option, and as I did, my thoughts were drawn to a conversation I had with a man in a bar, perhaps 6 weeks prior. It was, at the time, my favorite bar, and this man- a stranger- was at least 15 years older than I, an obvious long time alcoholic who had likely been well 'round the mountain and back in his own personal life. Over our beers, I informed the man that I was contemplating suicide, a statement I was willing to make because I sensed that he and I shared the same open-mindedness in terms of matters relating to life and death, a maturity of sorts that comes with the disease known as chronic alcoholism. And as expected, my drinking partner that day barely flinched when I told him this; after a moment of basic silence, he did ask, however, if I had ever sought professional help, in any capacity. 



And while I had done that, in a fashion, on at least 3 occasions in my recent history, I realized while pondering my options in early May, 2012, that I had never sought such help in anything resembling sincere desire; instead, I had taken myself to hospital ERs while drunkenly awash in suicidal ideation, and therein admitted to staff that I was thinking these things; but each time, as soon as I sobered up, I decided I did need to be there. At which point I would leave, and before long fall back into my willful desire to die. Walking down from the hills that day, it occurred to me that perhaps I should heed that good man's most basic feedback, and at least try to do so in reasonably good fashion. Once I entered that process in good faith on my own part, and maintained my openness to the best of my ability with my Tucson area caregivers, I came to learn that I was needful and deserving of far more than I had ever comprehended, and made the decision to stick it out; knowing that I could, at virtually anytime, request to be discharged, and go back to my original intentions. And that was the beginning of 21 full months of hospitalization.


The reasonable treatment and related moral support offered me in those Tucson area mental heath facilities afforded me the associated willingness to trust my doctors, and as the possibility of referral and admission to the Arizona State Hospital became a reality, I made the very difficult decision to cooperate to the best of my ability. But I had no idea of what I was getting into.     


SUBSTANDARD MEDICAL-MENTAL HEALTH CARE AS A MATTER OF STANDARD PRACTICE
AND THEY ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT.


For I learned within a very short time following my admission to ASH, that patients there are routinely abused as a matter of standard practice, and it wasn't long before the abuse fell directly upon me. My story is one which I hope will expose the atrocious wrongdoing that occurs at ASH in a meaningful way, and I intend to share all aspects of my own experiences, including details relating to an ongoing legal process of investigation brought about by my efforts while still at ASH to establish meaningful oversight and accountability specific not only to abuse that I suffered, but also in terms of the Hospital's willingness to carry on its daily operations in direct defiance of common codes of decency and medical ethics.  ch, ASH is a public (health care) entity under federal and state law, and is subject to the principles and provisions of The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), The Hospital Information Portability and Protection Act (HIPPA), along with numerous other well established codes of standard and practice. I mention these specific legal standards because as a patient, client/consumer, and human being, I fully expected nothing more or less than reasonable medical care when I came to accept the idea that ASH was the place for me to be as a person affected by a serious mental illness, needing as I did then, formal in-patient care and treatment consistent with what mental health care facilities are obligated to offer as per well established codes of practice and administrative operation.

A bit more history.


As stated already, immediately after that May, 2010 suicide attempt, I spent close to 8 months of treatment at several well operated short term facilities in Tucson; at which time I was then referred to Arizona's sole long term public mental hospital, The Arizona State Hospital. This reference was negotiated via a cooperative civil commitment that I agreed to after long and thoughtful conferencing on the matter with the good doctors at the University of Arizona Medical Center South Campus (formerly Kino-UPH Hospital). It need be said that those first eight months of treatment in Tucson area facilities was not always pleasant, nor free of shortfalls specific to issues that relate to my feelings about The Arizona State Hospital. But this is to be expected, in certain terms, for no residential mental health facility is entirely free of conflict, including in terms of staff behavior and possible misconduct. But I also attest to the fact that at ASH, I encountered conditions so dismally below par in terms of my well learned understand of established health care standards, that there is no comparison, in fact. Going from the the Tucson area hospitals to Arizona's sole long term public mental hospital (ASH, in Phoenix) was very akin leaving the contemporary society that I had lived in for the prior 49 years of my life, and entering a realm inhabited by authorities who exhibit little to no understanding of health care ethics, state/federal law and policy, or commonly recognized civility. 



At the time of my admission to ASH, I was experiencing chronic and ongoing suicidal ideation(s) in direct association with my primary diagnosis of major depression, and as stated above, it was only through a process of mutual trust and good faith planning that any member of my Tucson treatment planning team (including myself) came to consider sending me to ASH with my mental health care needs in mind. I approached the whole concept with an understandable air of trepidation and concern over the conditions at ASH, simply because it is a full blown insane asylum, and I had never personally undergone any sort of planned long term treatment in such a setting (my first meeting of any kind with a psychiatrist occurred in spring, 2010). None of us imagined the sorts of things that I would come to experience at ASH, and I owe my care givers in Tucson nothing short of absolute appreciation, because it is the covert malfeasance of ASH clinicians and administrators that are of issue in this story, and not the well founded expectations of my Tucson doctors, who reasonably presumed that ASH was up to the task of functioning in a manner consistent with the functions of any modern hospital.   

Indeed, none of us could have imagined that over a period 13 months I would come to witness and experience systematic and overtly sanctioned abuse that would, in time, lead me to become an inadvertently dedicated advocate for the rights and wellbeing of all persons associated with ASH, from the patients and their families, as well to the many good people who do, in fact, work at ASH. As stated already, patient abuse at the Arizona State hospital has to stop, and something has to be done to bring this about. This is the purpose of my blog, and I invite anybody of like mind to come aboard, for I can certainly use the support. None of the accounts that I intend to report in this blog are of bad faith intent, and all/any data that I include is factual and truthful to the best of my knowledge.

-----------------------------

IN CLOSING SEPTEMBER 19, 2018: As stated, all elements of information specifically naming individuals who I contend are at fault in relation to the corruption at Arizona State Hospital are and have always been allegations. It is imperative to note that in terms of the first three years of this publications existence, such allegations about persons who I had to deal with as an ASH patient circa 2011-12, from since fired Hospital administrators such as Cory Nelson and Donna Noriega, to representatives in the greater construct of the Arizona Department of Health Services, such as former director Will Humble, for example, were proven in due time as accurate. 

Not that the full range of due accountability that I fully believe was coming to these people actually came about, for indeed, no one of them were subject to criminal prosecution or other such oversight that I know have direct relation to such corruption. For this did not, in fact, come about.  Despite of this, however, in a context of proving that during my time at ASH numerous issues needing such oversight and accountability typically occurred on a near daily basis, often in direct proximity to wherever I might happen to have been while hospitalized there, let it be known that I've never had a need to make anything up. It is also crucially significant to realize that if I alone personally witnessed to so vast a range of unjust events and incidents during my time at ASH, consider the fact that any number of other patient-consumers at ASH most necessarily also witness(ed) and experience(ed) such issues to the same extent. I contend that this is still the case, early fall 2018, and that the current issues arising in terms of oversight at ASH- the lawsuit, for example, about ASH's refusal to share records with the federally and state empowered Arizona Center for Disability Law- prove the legitimacy of my concerns as they stand.    

What is disturbing to the nth degree, is the fact that many persons disabled by mental illness disorders lack the capability to recognize the significance of substandard care practices, and that even when they do, they may well have no idea of what to do about it. This is the nature of psychological disability, in part, and has for time immemorial allowed persons lacking in ethos and high quality character to exploit, abuse, or otherwise pose harm to the mentally ill in general. And even in this day in age, we are witnessing the presence at ASH of employed individuals known to be unethical, if not criminal in character. Be it the current quality control officer at ASH, Lisa Wynn, or the now incarcerated ASH security guard, Roger Forney (and on the list can go), ASH is still a safe haven for monstrous miscreants who willfully feed on the vulnerabilities of the ASH patient community.

Need I even say that this is unacceptable? Or is it the case that fat cat bureaucrats functioning in proximity to the operation of state mental hospitals and other like settings are too often ignorant to the struggles of the disabled, and/or oblivious in terms of recognizing why these institutions even exist? I have witnessed this, I actually have, listening in 2017  to a Montana health care official, one Zoe Barnard, downplay the significance of federal oversight at that state's mental hospital in formal (and public) sit-down with hospital staff; it was clear to me then that Barnard sought to misrepresent this reality to as a means to condone the issues at stake. Sucking such staff,- many/most of whom work with no relation to the administrative operation of such a facility- into the vortex that only exists due to corruption, rather then utilizing the situation as a means to learn, to grow. 

It is that bad.

I have never and nor do I today seek to unjustly persecute any other human being in any given context. This is simply not my character, bottom line. But at that same time, I have a known history in terms of public interest advocacy and activism, one that far predates my diagnosis of serious mental illness. It is thus apropos that I now seek opportunity to identify issues that I know to be harmful to the welfare of the ASH patient community. Likewise, in terms of cultural and societal discrimination against persons affected and disabled by mental illness cross the board, I am more then willing to stand against whatever elements of this area of prejudice I feel contributes to the issue. 

This is the least I can do, I feel, given my education, strengths and attributes, and the privileges I have been afforded as an American in this day in age.  It blows my mind- even today- how deeply corrupted the realm of public mental health care is, in graphic defiance of established and known history about just how deeply persons affected have been abused and harmed, arguably since the dawn of documented evidence to the effect. 

I also know all too well that I am very, very fortunate that my specific psychological diagnosis and the struggles that I deal with in context do not necessarily limit my ability to engage in mental health advocacy and activism, including and especially in relation to my own care needs. 

This, too, directly compels me to do what I can in order to improve the realities that mentally ill persons have to contend with. For by now, some of my closest friends are affected and disabled by serious mental illness, and this is an amazingly virtuous thing, as I see it. 

Where certain psychiatrists and other such staff who work in state hospitals bear grudges that may well flow from their basic inability to find "success" anywhere else, possibly due to cultural identity or other like nuances, I have it found it nothing short of a gift to become intimately familiar with the realm of mental illness, including in terms of my own diagnosis. It is, for myself, an avenue to personal insight and understanding. I am content, as such, with who I am.  


paoloreed@gmail.com