Arizona State Hospital Sued For Withholding Records On Patient's Death
Published: Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 11:34am
Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2018 - 12:12pm
For the record: The staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse has been in regular contact with journalist Will Stone of NPR station KJZZ 91.5 FM since June of this year.
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| Dr. Cara Christ Current Director Arizona Department of Health Services. -CURRENT- |
It is always a pleasure, and deeply appreciated, to be able to contribute to good faith investigations of the operation of the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) across the board. As with our early collaboration with Dave Biscobing of ABC Ch15/KNVX, Will is on the verge of busting out more information that directly relates to the current and ongoing corruption in ASH's office of administration. All such news reporting is designed to support the rights and care needs of the ASH patient community.
The above news story relates to the tragic and preventable death of Barbara West, and a current lawsuit that names the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), Dr. Cara Christ, as the chief defendant in relation to this avoidable incident. In essence, the administrators of ASH, including the ASH CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen, and senior medical staff, such as ASH's long time Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, who were directly responsible for keeping Ms. West safe, failed to comply by their own given policy(s) with respect for persons known to pose risk to themself, including but not limited to suicidal ideation. As a consequence, Ms. West did succeed- there in the Hospital- in killing herself at a time when she was to be closely observed on a 24/7 basis. That such a death could occur in a setting where the public would expect an optimum level of safety, a hospital, is egregious to the core, and this is precisely why Christ is in the position today.
The case itself, #2:18-cv-02845-BSB, has been filed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona by the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and can be viewed in full and online in Will Stone's story (above).
Two other preventable patient deaths occurred under the watch and authority of ASH's former-since fired CEO Cory Nelson and the former-since fled director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, Will Humble. At least two of these individuals, Mary "Franky" Adams and Christopher Blackman, are friends of mine from my time as in ASH patient.
Franky, for example, was one the first to welcome me to ASH, by calling out to me on my first day there: "Now there's a 'Sarer if ever I have seen one!", this term being slang for anyone from Arkansa (which I am not, oh well...); while also being the last patient I actually saw, literally as I was walking towards the exit upon my formal February, 2012, discharge from there, her calling out yet again, "Good luck, Patrick!"
I was gravely disturbed to learn that Franky's preventable death was the direct consequence of ASH staff forcing an oral medication into her throat at a time when she was in crisis in relation to her struggles with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and incident which more then one people I know characterize as outright murder.
Chris I recall meeting soon after he was admitted to ASH. He was very friendly right from the get go, a troubled young man who described that he had been in and out of psychiatric facilities since he was an adolescent. He shared the fact that one aspect of his disorder(s), pica, is characterized by an appetite for substances that are non-nutritive, such as pencils, paper clips, glass, and on the list went.
Chris's death occurred after ASH medical staff refused to acknowledge the significance of him having ingested several broken up CD cases, which did occur in the presence of several such medical staff.
All three of these preventable deaths have direct bearing on the ongoing presence of substandard medical practices at ASH, which I have emphasized time and time again since the founding of this blog publication. It is crucial, as well, to recall the horrific death of April Mott in late August, 2011, who had no direct relation to the operation of ASH outside of these substandard care practices, did occur due to the willingness of ASH administrators and senior ranking medical staff to go to whatever lengths they had to in order to avoid accountability, this in relation to the violent escape of Jesus Rincon Murrieta, which was patently denied and thus covered up despite being reported by me only weeks after he escaped, in fact. I attest to Dr. Steven Dingle's direct involvement in this preventable death, because I was at ASH when this tragedy played out in full, and did in fact report the escape itself to local Phoenix media; as ASH's chief medical officer, there is simply no way that he did not participate in the decision to keep Murrieta's escape out the eye of the public.
For more information about this, please see this blog, January 07, 2018, "The Murder of April Mott."
IN CLOSING:
We warned them. Boy, did we ever.
Herein, only one more bright line body of data specific to issues that are still in crucial need of oversight at ASH, and throughout the highest offices of ADHS. All involved parties are due plain accountability, and no matter how far they may go in trying to deny this fact, the reality stands that there is no justifiable reason for why these deaths have occurred.
How or why licensed medical professionals in any setting would be willing to condone or otherwise ignore the harms caused by abject corruption and deeply substandard care practices is still beyond me today. It- all of it- defies the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, as well as a wide range of established laws and policies designed to ensure that individuals receiving medical care are not subject to anything sort of optimum care.
I have said it before, and I will continue to do so for he foreseeable future: History does not have to repeat itself.
At its base, however, I also know that these issues only arise to the degree that they have at ASH on the simple basis of all ASH patients being disabled by serious mental illness. Disabled, vulnerable to negligence and abuse, and 100% at risk of being harmed by the historically known shortfalls at state managed mental health care facilities such as ASH. So long as persons such Dr. Steven Dingle- a known sexual abuser of women under his direct authority- are granted employment at ASH (and on even that list can go even as I write), there is little in the way of hope that the conditions at ASH will ever improve.
And to know as we do that the deaths of no less then three ASH patients in recent years were preventable, had only the staff at ASH abided by their given responsibilities, should be shocking the conscience of any reasonably intelligent person. Clearly, persons such as Dr. Aaron Bowen and Dr. Cara Christ, are of no better character then the ones summarily fired from ASH and ADHS in 2015. Persons willing to abuse the rights of persons disabled by serous mental illness.
Therein, if things stay the way they are today, history will in fact repeat itself. While the patients at ASH are continually subject to harm as a direct and undeniable consequence.
The above news story relates to the tragic and preventable death of Barbara West, and a current lawsuit that names the director of the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), Dr. Cara Christ, as the chief defendant in relation to this avoidable incident. In essence, the administrators of ASH, including the ASH CEO Dr. Aaron Bowen, and senior medical staff, such as ASH's long time Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, who were directly responsible for keeping Ms. West safe, failed to comply by their own given policy(s) with respect for persons known to pose risk to themself, including but not limited to suicidal ideation. As a consequence, Ms. West did succeed- there in the Hospital- in killing herself at a time when she was to be closely observed on a 24/7 basis. That such a death could occur in a setting where the public would expect an optimum level of safety, a hospital, is egregious to the core, and this is precisely why Christ is in the position today.
The case itself, #2:18-cv-02845-BSB, has been filed in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona by the Arizona Center for Disability Law, and can be viewed in full and online in Will Stone's story (above).
Two other preventable patient deaths occurred under the watch and authority of ASH's former-since fired CEO Cory Nelson and the former-since fled director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, Will Humble. At least two of these individuals, Mary "Franky" Adams and Christopher Blackman, are friends of mine from my time as in ASH patient.
Franky, for example, was one the first to welcome me to ASH, by calling out to me on my first day there: "Now there's a 'Sarer if ever I have seen one!", this term being slang for anyone from Arkansa (which I am not, oh well...); while also being the last patient I actually saw, literally as I was walking towards the exit upon my formal February, 2012, discharge from there, her calling out yet again, "Good luck, Patrick!"
I was gravely disturbed to learn that Franky's preventable death was the direct consequence of ASH staff forcing an oral medication into her throat at a time when she was in crisis in relation to her struggles with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and incident which more then one people I know characterize as outright murder.
Chris I recall meeting soon after he was admitted to ASH. He was very friendly right from the get go, a troubled young man who described that he had been in and out of psychiatric facilities since he was an adolescent. He shared the fact that one aspect of his disorder(s), pica, is characterized by an appetite for substances that are non-nutritive, such as pencils, paper clips, glass, and on the list went.
Chris's death occurred after ASH medical staff refused to acknowledge the significance of him having ingested several broken up CD cases, which did occur in the presence of several such medical staff.
All three of these preventable deaths have direct bearing on the ongoing presence of substandard medical practices at ASH, which I have emphasized time and time again since the founding of this blog publication. It is crucial, as well, to recall the horrific death of April Mott in late August, 2011, who had no direct relation to the operation of ASH outside of these substandard care practices, did occur due to the willingness of ASH administrators and senior ranking medical staff to go to whatever lengths they had to in order to avoid accountability, this in relation to the violent escape of Jesus Rincon Murrieta, which was patently denied and thus covered up despite being reported by me only weeks after he escaped, in fact. I attest to Dr. Steven Dingle's direct involvement in this preventable death, because I was at ASH when this tragedy played out in full, and did in fact report the escape itself to local Phoenix media; as ASH's chief medical officer, there is simply no way that he did not participate in the decision to keep Murrieta's escape out the eye of the public.
For more information about this, please see this blog, January 07, 2018, "The Murder of April Mott."
IN CLOSING:
We warned them. Boy, did we ever.
Herein, only one more bright line body of data specific to issues that are still in crucial need of oversight at ASH, and throughout the highest offices of ADHS. All involved parties are due plain accountability, and no matter how far they may go in trying to deny this fact, the reality stands that there is no justifiable reason for why these deaths have occurred.
How or why licensed medical professionals in any setting would be willing to condone or otherwise ignore the harms caused by abject corruption and deeply substandard care practices is still beyond me today. It- all of it- defies the principles of the Hippocratic Oath, as well as a wide range of established laws and policies designed to ensure that individuals receiving medical care are not subject to anything sort of optimum care.
I have said it before, and I will continue to do so for he foreseeable future: History does not have to repeat itself.
At its base, however, I also know that these issues only arise to the degree that they have at ASH on the simple basis of all ASH patients being disabled by serious mental illness. Disabled, vulnerable to negligence and abuse, and 100% at risk of being harmed by the historically known shortfalls at state managed mental health care facilities such as ASH. So long as persons such Dr. Steven Dingle- a known sexual abuser of women under his direct authority- are granted employment at ASH (and on even that list can go even as I write), there is little in the way of hope that the conditions at ASH will ever improve.
And to know as we do that the deaths of no less then three ASH patients in recent years were preventable, had only the staff at ASH abided by their given responsibilities, should be shocking the conscience of any reasonably intelligent person. Clearly, persons such as Dr. Aaron Bowen and Dr. Cara Christ, are of no better character then the ones summarily fired from ASH and ADHS in 2015. Persons willing to abuse the rights of persons disabled by serous mental illness.
Therein, if things stay the way they are today, history will in fact repeat itself. While the patients at ASH are continually subject to harm as a direct and undeniable consequence.
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.