Voices Of the Unempowered: Wherein An Aggrieved Former Patient Of The Arizona State Hospital Shares His Sense of Purpose And Cause With Other Civilly Dedicated Members Of The Community.

I am currently reading a comical surrealist novel, "The Master and Margarita," (completed in 1939, published in english  for the first time in 1967), which was written by the late Russian playwright Mikhail Bulgakov (1894-1940), who actively wrote during the Stalinist regime in the first half of the twentieth century, and whose work was banned because of its controversial criticisms of over authoritative government and related corruption, remaining unpublished for the most part, until well after his death . Bulgakov's story depicts the appearance of Satan in 1920s Moscow, and the following passage caught my attention just last night. In it, the devil has inadvertently drawn the company of a young poet who has until that moment spent a number of years hospitalized in relation to uncontrollable fear that arose in his conscious thoughts as a consequence of belligerently tyrannical publishing houses:

            "That's better," said Woland (Satan) with a slight frown . "Now      
              we can talk. Who are you?"
  
            "I am no one," replied the young man with a lopsided smile.
            "Where have you come from?"

            "From the madhouse. I am a mental patient," replied the visitor.

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

Earlier today, I enjoyed the privilege of presenting my concerns about patient abuse at the Arizona state Hospital at a very impressive Human Rights Rally at Wheeler Park in Flagstaff. This gathering was organized by the friendly folks from the Indigenous Resistance.org network, and sponsored (in part) by The Flagstaff Action Network, Outta' Your Backpack Media, The Arizona Center for Biological Diversity, and the Shanker Law Firm. As I spoke, I found myself thinking of my friend Thomas, who has been hospitalized at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) for 8-9 years and is likely not going anywhere soon, and who- due to having made at least one attempt to rely upon the hospital and state grievance and appeals representatives as a matter of speaking up in defense of his rights as a human being- is today little different from a shaking leaf in a desert windstorm, his fear of ASH staff and administration so deep, that he would literally shudder whenever I shared with him my own strongly felt desire to speak out against abuse at ASH. 

I did not know whether to estimate Thomas' fears as irrational, at first, but beyond getting to know him as I also grew familiar with the rampant patient abuse at ASH, I also had an opportunity to speak with a human rights advocate who tried to assist Thomas in at least one situation, and I learned from her that Thomas had been subjected to administrative retaliation almost identical to the retaliatory transfer that I later came to experience in early September, 2011.

Thomas is a peaceful and amicable man, through and through, and he too was unduly placed on a very dangerous unit after questioning certain issues at ASH, where he is constantly subjected to violence imparted on him by much more aggressive mentally ill adults. But even with these seemingly volatile circumstances, the ongoing elbow to elbow presence in his daily life of violent paranoid schizophrenics, and so on, it was Thomas who first said to me: 

"I am terrified of staff!" He then vainly tried to warn me, in his kindhearted way, explaining to me that "It's best to just let these people do things the way do them, and get out of here as soon as you can."

    Indeed, the problems at ASH are with staff, and not the patients.



THERE WERE AT LEAST 200 PEOPLE AT TODAY'S HUMAN RIGHTS RALLY. 

    I HANDED OUT 42 OF THESE TO ATTENDEES.

I ONLY REGRET NOT BRINGING MORE

(PREPAREDNESS IS THE CARDINAL RULE OF ANY GOOD BOY SCOUT)

As I spoke today, I thought about how essentially unjust it is that  Thomas and countless other individuals that I got to know at ASH don't have the basic freedom that I have today to speak out against the wrongdoing at ASH. And I fear even now, as I write, that my message today will not carry far beyond the impromptu stage that I orated from. I am no sort of pulpit speaker, and I do not like asking others for help; while the range of issues by other speakers today had to do with equally imperative aspects of human rights issues in contemporary society and culture.

But my voice, coming as I am from that place, ASH, where patients are laughed at by staff, and scorned by certain of the other patients who staff have wrapped around their dirty fingers, whenever they advocate on behalf of their own fundamental human rights, may be the only voice from ASH to hit this part of the state for the next millennium. Such is the state of mental health care and related advocacy concerns in the human community, not so much a case of deaf ears as it is a case of hollow voices, the stigma and related discrimination's against mentally ill persons being the standard for more Americans than any sort of poll will ever tell us.

I know what it is to discriminate. Not so long ago, I would effectively cross any given street if and when I came upon a man on a sidewalk yelling at the sky, and so on. Today, via my very real experience over the last 25 months, I know what it is to accept mentally ill persons for who they are, no less human then anyone else, and therein  deserving of love, compassion, and respect equal to that of anyone else. Which is to say, I have a learned and sincere understanding of both the discomfort (or worse) that many citizens experience when faced with issues specific to the mentally ill; as well, today, a far more equitable understanding of what it is to be, in fact, affected by mental illness, and subjected on that basis to discrimination and abuse. 

This latter understanding came to me via my experiences while being "treated" (for lack of a better word) in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility, ASH. Bottom line, hands down, end of story.

I also know today that even in contemporary terms, the presence today of covertly sanctioned patient abuse in public American hospital facilities such as ASH is a far more insidious state of affairs than outright racism or genocide, because many mentally ill persons do, for the most part, function in their very own, personal worlds on the basis of their given health challenges. Being placed in long term settings where direct, publicly administered oversight is effectively nonexistent, puts vulnerable persons such as the mentally ill at undeniably great risk of abuse and related medical perversion. Based upon my experiences at ASH, I somewhat doubt that the administrators at ASH even comprehend the depths of this risk, but this is no excuse for their systematic rejections of patient voices in terms of alleged staff wrongdoing.

ASH is a place where I might have at one time felt safe in presuming that mentally ill adults would be most protected from outright abuse and medical unlawfulness, but as a patient there, I learned the exact opposite.

Voicelessness is a central theme of mental illness in society today, but not entirely because of the inability and related unwillingness of healthy people to listen. My time in the close company of Arizona's most seriously mentally ill adults taught me that we, the ones effected so strongly by our given mental illness/disorder, experience our illness all but alone. This is true in the sense that only the mentally person experiences the innermost aspects of their own cognitive experiences, and in relation to this, we are often most alone when asked to meaningfully express ourselves. The desire to loudly advertise our struggles to remain lucid is not a given, and far too often, the societal stigmatization of mentally ill persons carries a two fold impact.

I can, in this sense, attest to the fact that most of us, the mentally ill,  undesirably share the same degree of shame and stigmatization that is  assigned to us by supposedly "healthy" people. Further compromising out ability to even accept needed health care in context. 

Early on in my treatment for depression, I shirked the notion that I could somehow be like that, and once I somewhat willingly allowed myself to begin treatment for an identified mental illness, I did so begrudgingly, because I was not certain that I was in any way deserving of exclusive attention derived of my diagnosis as a mentally ill person. As such, my own shortcomings in terms of accepting the fact that at least some degree of my depression based thinking is, at times, distorted, underlies the essential reason that it took  so long (21 full months of continuous inpatient hospitalization) for me to come to terms with my full diagnosis as a seriously mentally ill person. Sadness, per se', is not a mental illness, right? That is what I had told myself since my first encounter with severe depression (at the age of 13 or so). And with my suicidal ideations in mind,  so what if my sadness causes me to discard all notions of taking part in this world as it presents itself to me. 

Right?

But before these factors, there is me, the person, the man; and I am nothing, if I am unable to ascertain the essential bearing of my mental state on some level. All mentally ill persons have moments of reasonable lucidity. and at those times, at that level of their experiential lives, they are at least somewhat aware of their given interactions and related challenges when it comes to connecting with the world around them. This is not always true, but there is as overwhelming belief that the seriously mentally ill do not know that that they are so affected is erroneous. As with myself, I am well aware that major depressive disorder- a known form of serious mental illness- has long negated my life experiences, and that it is only due to my being affected by severe depression- vs. more debilitating forms of mental illness-  that I am able to function with no seeming negation in this sense.

Most "healthy" people see all of this as an affliction, and are made uncomfortable by it, granting mentally ill persons what might be characterized as "their space," or avoiding them entirely. This same basic condition applies to the atmosphere at ASH, and the outright deliberate willingness of the majority of ASH staff to treat the patients there as unequal to themselves directly endorses the fundamental challenges that all mentally ill people have in accepting the full breadth of their given diagnosis.

....Let the freaks be, right? Mikhail Bulgakov knew what he was talking about when he portrayed the expressed self identity of his long hospitalized poet in the way that he did:

                                                 "I am no one... I am a mental patient."

       Identity is a tricky thing in America today, and perhaps in human experience itself. I know that my father's conflict with self identity flowed in part from his modern "heritage" as an American Indian man, in large part because was an "Oklahoma Indian," a member of the far displaced Chickasaw nation, and a person who grew up in a time when Indian children in Oklahoma were told by their own parents to cloak their indianness because their parents were terrified by what they know about the new blood colonizers.  The depression that my father experienced later in his life was rooted in identity conflicts, I know this much about him, conflicts as deep as the waters of the greatest northern lakes, and as personal as humanely possible. My depression flows from these same elements of self understanding and conflict, albeit in a different form.

       But today, with the help of others who understand the graphic fear that comes with believing- for whatever reason-  that you are not worthy of- or cut out for- life itself, as well as of those who are capable of comprehending the egregious state of human rights issues in the United States and beyond, I may find the means to bring voice to the patients at ASH. Please, whoever you are, become involved in expressing simple, straight forward demands for rigorous investigation and oversight of the atrociously inhumane conditions at the Arizona State Hospital today.

DATELINE 2018: Not only am I able to seemingly function with no legitimate challenges specific to my known diagnosis of major depressive disorder, I am further and more importantly able to speak in defense of my rights and care needs. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

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

(2016 Update: I will keep it simple. Each and every ASH patient is disabled under state and federal law. This is precisely why ASH staff across the board are willing in their own right to abuse or otherwise engage in unlawful misconduct. I recognized this immediately upon my arrival to ASH, when my property (meds) were stolen, and in the next few days, when ASH nurses and technicians exhibited misbehavior that basically rocked my sense of conscience to the core. And then, when I turned to my primary attending physician in order to try and address these issues, I learned that such staff are also willing to engage is such misconduct, with respect for their obligations as they stand. And even later, when I turned to persons in the ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals, I ran into nothing short of brick walls that only furthered the present of ongoing substandard conditions at ASH across the board. Proving, as I see it, the fact that the Americans With Disabilities Act is the mechanism that needs to be brought forth with respect for bringing ASH up to standard. And if I have my way- which I fully believe I will in time- this will occur.) 

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

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)

     -TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE

     -CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

Section 12203 Prohibition Against Retaliation and Coercion

       a) Retaliation. No person shall discriminate against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this chapter or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter.

       b) Interference, coercion, or intimidation. It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by this chapter.

       c) Remedies and procedures. The remedies and procedures available under sections 12117, 12133, 12188 of this title shall be available to aggrieved persons for violations of subsections (a) and (b) of this section, with respect to subchapter I, subchapter II and subchapter III of this chapter, respectively.

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

As to the retaliative transfer,  one business day after the Sept. 2011 grievance report arrived in the administrative offices at ASH, I was advised in a September 06, 2012, letter drafted and signed by ASH Supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson and former ASH Chief Medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, that I was being transferred from the notably peaceful Palo Verde East unit to the very violent unit, Desert Sage East. I have attached this letter and a handful of other related documents further below; therein, a sequence of administrative actions designed to punish me for having participated in a lawful, good faith report of gross administrative abuse of authority that discriminated against me and abridged a number of my constitutional rights to dignity, freedom from undue restriction and restraint, fair treatment, and several other very serious liberties and protections afforded me and all patients at ASH under the provisions of the congressionally created ADA statute, and the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.

However, and in addition to the technical features of ASH unlawful administrative actions laid out later in this article, I am including the following Arizona Republic newspaper article about a man named Joe Saucedo Gallegos, who bludgeoned two little boys to death with a baseball bat in 2008, because Mr. Gallegos and his story as it stands today has direct bearing on the validity of my concerns. It is my not my desire to worsen Mr. Gallegos personal life at this date, for he is also a victim of the mental health system, in my humble opinion, this despite my feelings about the heinousness of the crime that he was recently prosecuted for; but the fac tof the matter is, Mr. Gallegos presence at ASH directly relates to my allegations concerning the retaliation that I was subjected to....  

       

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

 

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

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

        

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

THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)

     -TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE

     -CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

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

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

          Immediately, I recognized that required procedures had been disregarded to an extreme that definitely extended to the realm of federal protections and so on, but as always, I began a process of fundamentally good faith dissent that relied upon the willingness of the patient advocate at ASH, Sonya Serda, to

do her part in terms of at least addressing the fact that hospital and ADHS procedure hadn't been followed, as expressed in a September 12, 2011, grievance report that I submitted to Ms. Serda, shown below:   

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

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

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

At this time, I have prevailed in fighting ASH' and ADHS' attempts to cover up the highly egregious retaliation that I was subjected to by the September 06, 2011, unit transfer from what is possibly the most peaceful unit at ASH to the arguably most violent one; and I have yet to hear, but as with the original September 06, 2011, grievance report that led to ASH Supervisor and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle's  decision to punish me for my self advocacy efforts, there is a pending (yet to be scheduled) hearing that will be conducted in the Arizona Office of Administrative a hearings in downtown Phoenix in specific relation to my allegations concerning retaliation, and the high degree of risk that was posed to me for the last 6 months of my so called "treatment" at the Arizona State Hospital.

I cannot easily describe the extent of violence that I was exposed to after my transfer to Desert Sage East unit, but suffice it to say, it is a unit specifically staffed and designed to house the most problematic, and potentially violent,  patients on the civil side of ASH . As such, the atmoshpere on Desert Sage East contradicts my personality characteristics and the very heart of my given diagnosis. The impacts of this action led to myriad experiences on that unit were deeply disturbing and very detrimental to my overall well being. In sum, I was assaulted by mentally disturbed patients on nine occasions during the whole of my nearly two year period of hospitalization in mental health facilities, ASH and elsewhere circa 2010-2012, and in none of those occasions did I so much as strike back in my own defense or otherwise engage in violent acts. I am a nonviolent person dedicated to civil interactions with others at all times, I have no history of violence or related criminal record, and to quote a rather well known Kinks song: "I'm not the world's most physical guy...", either. It is my express contention that ASH administrators and clinicians knew this about me (how could they not?) when they opted to subject me to the highly volatile and clearly dangerous environment of Desert Sage East. I am still bothered by very real anxiety and fear that stems directly from the months I spent on that unit, and I am uncomfortably distrustful of medical authorities now, too, in direct relation to the radically criminally malfeasant abuse of power that was subjected on me in this matter. It is a bottom line fact that any number of nonviolent mentally ill adults at ASH are subjected to retaliation and related undue exposure to harm on a day to day basis.          

Hopefully, these documents will give readers an idea of the systematic manner in which ASH administrators and department of health representatives flaunt their ill conceived sense of power and authority over persons effected by serious mental illness and related disability as matter of standard practice. It is criminal and inhumane to the nth degree. Let's stop it today.

(2016 Update: Read my lips, people. Each and every ASH patient is seriously disabled under state and federal law. It's like, duh! They're being treated on a long term, in-patient basis in a state operated hospital, for crying out loud. Regardless of the motives of persons willing to abuse ASH patients, and so on, the bare fact is, these highly at-risk and disabled citizens of the United States are being subjected to grossly substandard medical care, and it occurs on the basis of there given disability. It's that bad, it need to be stopped once and for all.)

paoloreed@gmail.com

Fourteenth Amendment And Patient Rights

Abuse of Rights Doctrine: Civil Law. The principle that a person or entity may be liable for harm caused by doing something the person has a right to do, it the right (1) is exercised for the purpose or primary motive of causing harm, (2) is exercised without a serious and legitimate interest that is deserving of judicial protection, (3) in exercised against moral rules, good faith, or elementary fairness, (4) in exercised for a purpose other than the one it was granted.

Equal Protection: The constitutional guarantee that the government must treat a person or class of persons the same as it treats other persons or classes in like circumstances.

Assault: n. 1. criminal & tort law. The threat or use of force on another that causes that person to have a reasonable apprehension of imminent harmful or offensive contact; the act of putting another person in reasonable fear of apprehension of an imminent battery by means of as act amounting to an attempt or threat to commit a battery. 2. criminal law. An attempt commit battery, requiring the specific intent to cause physical harm. ---- Also termed (in senses of 1 and 2) simple assault. 3. Loosely, a battery. 4. Popularly, any attack.---- assault, vb.---- assaultive, adj. Cf. BATTERY

(Blacks)

Battery: n. 1. The application of force to another, resulting in harmful or offensive contact.

 

 

Arizona State Hospital: The Bermuda Triangle Of Federally Protected Personal Mail: Wherein, yet again, mail that I addressed to a well recognized authoritative bureau and then attempted to mail from the Arizona State Hospital vanishes. 

       Below, basic e-mail records relating to documents that went missing after I submitted them to the mail office at The Arizona State Hospital, an office that is maintained by ASH security staff. Between May, 2011, and February, 2012, approximately 21 sealed letter documents at a minimum vanished after I attempted to send them out through the ASH mail office, all 26 of them addressed to one or the other of various authority agencies that I tried to file reports of abuse and related misconduct to, including but not limited to: The American Civil Liberties Union, The Joint Commission (on the accreditation of hospitals), the American Medical Association, and in this specific case, The Arizona Board of Behavioral Health Examiners (ABBHE) (see this blog: 4/24/12 "Citizens Commission On Human Rights"). As described, the matter specific to this particular piece of missing mail is one of the final unlawful actions taken by administrative staff members before my late February, 2012,  discharge, but the issue of stolen outgoing mail is something I had to deal with throughout the duration of my treatment at ASH. I also found my incoming mail preopened on a number of occasions, including in the cases of registered mail sent to me, and one letter from an attorney with The Maricopa County Public Advocates Office.
       It is in direct violation of federal law for anybody to interfere with another persons mail, and although institutions like ASH are at times justified in limiting mailings by patients who have an established record of mail fraud or other like misconduct, they cannot so limit patient mail arbitrarily or without specific cause. In my case, I have absolutely no record or history- period- of mail fraud or other like misconduct in relation to the federal mail system, and the unlawful seizure of my personal outgoing mail by security and/or administrative staff at ASH is a criminal abridgment of my rights and protections under federal law and policy.
       Here again, a clear example of the radically out of control conditions at the Arizona State Hospital, where hospital clinicians and administrative staff do business however they see fit, in utter defiance of well established law and policy. Now it is a matter of me going through the trouble of forwarding the originals of two different documents that I tried to send the ABBHE in October, 2011, (in regards to social worker staff, including a social services supervisor named Laura), and February, 2012 (in regards to the 4/24/12 article, and the ASH social workers Robert Washington, and Veneranda Heffern)); along with a complaint about the absence of secure mail and the contribution of that issue to ongoing social worker misconduct at ASH.

This is an email that I sent to the AZ Board of Behavioral Health Examiners last week: 

                   TO: INFORMATION@AZBBHE.US

Hello: My name is (PJ Reed)  I was recently discharged from the Arizona State Hospital (ASH)  in Phoenix, AZ, following over 13 months of treatment for major depressive disorder. During that time, I was repeatedly subjected to blatant deception and misrepresentation of facts central to my status and needs as a mentally ill person in the state of Arizona by various representatives of the hospital's social worker staff, including several administrative social workers, as well as the ASH Chief Operating Officer, Donna Noriega, who I believe is licensed through your office in relation to her duties and responsibilities at ASH. I filed two separate complaint reports to your office by mail in late October, 2011, and again in early February, 2012, but never heard anything back from you. While hospitalized at ASH I learned that that outgoing mail is often unlawfully seized, and today believe that the mail I sent to to you was also unlawfully seized. This perhaps sound fantastic or ill conceived, but I need to verify whether or not your office received any of my mail, at a minimum. I am currently involved in an investigation of administrative misconduct at ASH, and while I cannot share the details at this point, I have been instructed to make this request. Please verify one way or the other if my earlier correspondence was ever received, and respond as soon as possible to me at....

            Thank you. Sincerely (PJ Reed)  

 This is the response, received by me today (April 28, 2012):

From: Patricia Reynolds patricia.reynolds@azbbhe.us	Apr 26 (1 day ago)
(Mr. Reed)

      The Board has not received any complaints or correspondence from you regarding people working at ASH. I hope this is helpful to you.

       Sincerely,

       Patricia Reynolds

      At this point, I will do what I can to follow up on seeing that this particular brand of criminal conduct at The Arizona State Hospital is investigated and that the ones responsible for these matters is held accountable. It is a tough row to hoe, however, given that patients at ASH are not able to send registered mail, therein creating another absence of reasonable oversight in terms of protecting patient rights specific to personal mail. I anticipate an ASH defense based on patent denials of my claim that I even tried to mail these documents, but the reality is as follows: I am not one who had any reason to hold back on trying to contact whoever the heck I could come up with in terms of possible support while I was a patient at ASH, where I was subjected to ongoing abuse for the entirety of my time there. These documents were sealed, addressed, and submitted by me to ASH staff who are responsible for seeing that all of mail made into the hands of the United States Postal Service. I attest to his fact with no hesitation. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

        

Meanwhile, Dingle Is Promoted: Wherein, the Chief Medical Officer at the Arizona State Hospital during the entriety of my time there, moves up in the state system, despite being the big kahuna (clinically speaking) during some of the gravest episodes of professional misconduct and administrative abuse in recent history. Yep.

             ASH #7

THESE DOCTORS ARE MURDEROUS
WEEKEND SCARY MOVIE STUFF.
WE ALL HAVE A GUN IN OUR BACK
AND IT IS NOT OUR IMAGINATION.
                                                              (October, 2011)

              ASH #4

Ridiculous these hackles
at the nape of my neck
warning of frost on a grave
grave patient form of death
my hate for these plundering
knave like assholes
ye olde tavern was filled
centuries past of men
far better than these
that steer the lives of vulnerable
childlike SMIs
not asking for much
beyond a bit of common law.

Beware, ye knaves, my knife
is well honed my hand all but gnarled
over with you all
ye rat bastard stinking vermin
         nelson ahkter dingle
         ash is in the air ash is on the ground
         and the time is soon coming.  
                                                            (November 2011)

                 Meanwhile Dingle Is Promoted

The Arizona State Hospital is a template for harm

        to the already broken mind

more disparaging

       for the already broken soul

more acid based humility

       for the already broken heart.

ASH god damned ASH,

       how do they do it,

where do these monsters come from?

       It cannot be earth, it must be

some sort of cereal

       box special out of southeast Asia,

all of them, even the round eyes

       with decent teeth, education

and so on, working here.

               Yeah, right "working,"

               like dope dealers work.

                                           (June 2011)

AZ ADMIN CODE R9-21-402, 403, 404, 405, 406

 

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE SUBSTANDARD PRACTICES AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL

Of the Beginning.

DATELINE: January, 2014. It is all about the book now. These people have continued to dig their graves in spite of my advising them in no uncertain terms that I will never let them get away with what I witnessed and experienced as an ASH patient. So on it goes, my writing as this situation continues to evolve, and the production of my manuscript. The vast majority of my earliest efforts to address the grossly substandard medical-mental health care practices and conditions at The Arizona State Hospital are coming to fruition, and are gibing virtually on point with my earliest predictions in the context, as per my understanding of applicable law and policy. The fact is, none of the one's running ASH for the last quarter century (and longer) are noticeably  intelligent, and while it far from my primary objective to identify such dynamics, when it comes to the administrators and senior clinicians at ASH, there is a related and undeniable dynamic that does have everything to do with fundamental ineptitude which in my observations more than borders of outright stupidity.  The following relates to one of my first post-ASH experiences, and stands as evidence to my work, as it has occurred since 2011. 

T


 Public Announcement: Saturday, April 28, 2012: I've Been Granted The Opportunity To Speak This Upcoming Saturday At A Rally Relating To Contemporary Human Rights, On The Topic of Mental Patient Abuse At The Arizona State Hospital And In The Arizona Department Of Behavioral Health Services. Hope To See You There (sic).

       I had an interesting discussion with a doctorate level member of the Arizona behavioral health care system, who has extensive experience in both the public as well as private arenas in this state and elsewhere. As soon as I mentioned my contention that the abuse I saw at the Arizona State Hospital was exclusive in the sense that staff all at levels at ASH conducted themselves in ways that would never be acceptable in private hospitals, or any other like setting like facility where oversight and  accountability are required as per basic policy and law (including the Pima County, AZ, hospital that I was treated in for my first eight full months in 2010, pre-ASH), this fellow went into a very disturbing and well detailed  outline of various criminal acts that he had witnessed in the over the 12 not-so-long-ago years that he worked for the AZ behavioral health care network. Prior to Arizona, he had worked in state hospitals in Louisiana and Mississippi, and he made very clear that even in those critically poor states, the level of patient care eclipses the things he he witnessed and experienced while working for the state of Arizona. This was definitely not the first time that I heard a well educated and lucid assertion to this effect; it is, in fact, common knowledge to many people that I that have met in recent months, the fact that Arizona's behavioral health care system is one of the least up to date in the nation, statistically and practically. But this man is the first person I have personally met with so much direct experience in the field, and his related willingness to speak out about the deeply substandard level of practice displayed by the one's we rely upon to take care of the state's most vulnerable adults is sure to contribute to holding these people accountable sometime in the near future. 

        Not only did this decent hearted man offer the possibility of expert testimony when the time comes, he went on to describe a range of very well founded concerns that he has about gross immorality, lack of professional and administrative ethics, and outright criminal malpractice, which occurs at ASH, and beyond in the broader ADHS/BHS construct. These are issues that he became familiar through his friendship with a number of people who worked or still work at ASH, and as it turns out, we each do know more than one such person by name. Upon learning of my experiences at ASH and my current good faith efforts to address wrongdoing and substandard medical practices at ASH, he further described physician misconduct specific relating to past and ongoing investigations of ASH (including names/titles of ASH staff who I know all too well, either for good or not), and further stated his awareness of the fact that such persons have been engaging in this misconduct with no oversight whatsoever, as a matter of standard practice- and that they are getting away with it day in-day out.

        The poor man became so disillusioned with rampant and systemic problems in the state behavioral system that, for a time, he swore off having anything to do with public health care here in Arizona. But our meeting came about in relation to his volunteer work today in a local resource agency that I recently made acquaintance with, and as such, he is still contributing his skills to the best of his ability in an otherwise corrupt system of behavioral health care.

      As I have stated, while hospitalized at the Arizona State Hospital between January, 2011, and February, 2012, I was often shocked by the blatant ineptitude of staff at all levels of employ, but most disturbingly, in the case of doctors, nurses, and administrators, leading me to think, at times, that proving their respective roles in the graphic criminal issues there at ASH might be akin to taking candy from babies. And with all due respect for the treatment needs of my many friends at ASH, I am increasingly compelled to believe that even a seriously mentally ill person like myself, or any of them- my friends- will have a chance to take the issues associated with the various, high level staff that I have already talked about in this blog, when these issues make it the federal courts (if not sooner). 

        It will never be too late to get on board with this ongoing cause. Mentally ill adults are our family, neighbors, and fellows, and here in Arizona, the time has come for serious reform and civil revolution specific to issues connected with patient abuse at ASH and throughout the state behavioral health care system.

paoloreed@gmail.com         

Citizens Commission on Human Rights: State Hospitals are Still Snakepits of Patient Abuse, Betrayal of the Public

       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. The DOJ reports in particular found near-identical violations and deficiencies in each facility it investigated—including inappropriate, excessive or inadequately documented use of seclusion and restraints, as well as drugs being used as chemical restraints. The number of hospitals and the range of similar abuses throw up a red flag that says “systemic patient civil rights abuses.”
       Often referred to as “snakepits” in the early 1900's, for prevalence of violence and degradation and absence of rehabilitation, today's state mental institutions don't appear to have changed much.

    The above passage is one segment of an article written by S. Wagner, who is the Director of Litigation and Prosecution with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR- see www.cchr.org), based in Los Angeles, CA. Patients at the Arizona State Hospital are not allowed access to the internet under any conditions, so I was unable to conduct any independent research concerning the ongoing presence of administrative corruption and patient abuse at state hospitals in the US today. I did begin to sense the severity of wrongdoing at ASH pretty quickly, though, not long after my admission there in early Jan. 2011, and I always had a feeling that there must be a lot going on in terms of the overall situation in this context.
     Information concerning the existence of resources such as the CCHR came to me almost immediately after I discharged from ASH in February, 2012, and this article reminded me of a process that I had engaged in fairly early on in my time at The Arizona State Hospital, as follows: 
     Specifically, in early May, 2011, when I as a patient was beginning to grasp the severity of the unlawful conduct and substandard conditions at The Arizona State Hospital, a former advocate from the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Human Rights (ADHS/OHR) named John Gallagher made me aware of the requirement that institutions like ASH establish patient-client based human rights panels, and as soon as I got a look at the document shown below I submitted my formal inquiry to the Department of Behavioral Health Services as to why there was no such committee at ASH, as required. But I never heard a damn thing back from anybody about this, and I can only speculate as to why. As I have already described, my outgoing mail at ASH was unlawfully seized on any number of occasions (a fact that was verified by USPS and ACLU staff, and of course I have documentation to this effect), and I am also willing to bet that the person at the other end of this communication (presuming my letter did go out) felt that I wasn't worthy of a response because I was a patient at ASH. Such was the case when I was a patient at ASH and had interactions with numerous state and municipal authorities who were/are assigned the responsibility of seeing that mentally ill persons-patients at ASH (and beyond) are nor deprived of their fundamental rights, liberties and privileges; and in my opinion today, such is the case when it comes to the stigmatization towards mentally ill persons that still exists throughout society. The fact that documents such as the one below exist, and yet, no such committees have been established at places like ASH despite my direct communications with the agency assigned to this particular situation, sickens me as a human being, and further proves my contention that the state of Arizona's mental health care system is absolutely broken, out of keeping with commonly understood law and policy, and still in the process of severely detrimenting the lives of the hundreds of patients in ASH today.

        Mentally ill adults are the most marginalized population of adults in the United States today, and the existence of well established guidelines, including federal law and congressional enactments, as well as mandates such as the above document, reflect the expectation that mentally ill persons will be most assuredly protected from abuse in institutions like The Arizona State Hospital,which are supported by tax payer money and subject to the distinct requirement that patients undergoing treatment there are in no way deprived of the fullest possible protections available today. 

        Ironically, however, the administrators and clinicians at ASH somehow fail to recognize this basic tenet, in clear complicity with affiliated state agencies and representative officials; and rather then being a safe haven, the conditions at ASH are clinically dangerous, due to systemic discrimination and criminal negligence. While a patient at ASH, I witnessed and experienced this discrimination in all of the various settings found there, imparted upon myself and the other patients by staff at every level, and recognizable by virtue of the fact that ASH is the only hospital where I have ever seen such blatant denials and abuse of patient rights; and the absence of the above described, required patient-client structured human rights committee is only one example of the fundamental negligence that I can attest to as being standard practice at ASH, and throughout the affiliated state agencies.

      As research shows, mentally ill persons far too often find themselves subject to undeniable discrimination in all corners of society, which effectively aggravates their condition, and in many cases, leads them to places like ASH. This is, in fact, why places like ASH exist (of course). How is it, then, that the deplorable conditions I encountered at ASH are allowed to exist? 

       In closing, my experiences at ASH did, at times, extend to interactions with outlying state agencies, and I have documentation of abuse and discrimination in terms not only hospital staff and department of health representatives, but from the Phoenix Police Department, as well, this following an episode wherein I was physically assaulted and injured by a staff technician at ASH (see entry dated April 08, 2012, Fact #2). I will be outlining more of the details concerning that assault and the related sequence of unlawful followup by the ADHS Office of Grievance and Appeals in the next few days, as I have a May 17, 2012, court date in the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings concerning the matter. The hospital will theoretically be represented by an attorney named Joel Rudd, who is an assistant with state's Office of the Attorney General, and  a man who is, in fact, party to one of the other very serious grievance issues that I will be presenting at hearing later on in time.

       I have still not succeed in getting the Phoenix Police department to investigate the discrimination that I experienced in this case, despite letters to (and from) Maricopa County (Phoenix) Attorney, Bill Montgomery, and direct communications with several police officials. But I will be getting on top of that issue as this court date nears, and intend to fully present my experience to the administrative law judge assigned to this hearing. And I do, of course, have documentation of these things, which I will also update to this site before long.

      What will it take to bring the publics awareness of these very critical issues up enough to bring about meaningful reaction and response to my pleas for help? Please, anybody, add yourself to the mix, and help me address these matters NOW. Until something is done, the situation remains the same: Patients at the Arizona State Hospital are being abused even as I write, and the current administration is dirty, too, and quite clearly unwilling to do anything much about it.   

paoloreed@gmail.com