Fact #3) Willful unlawful retaliation; criminal abuse of administrative authority; abridgments of internal codes of policy and procedure; blatant denial of patients rights, privileges, and liberties as defined by federal and state law; willful exposure to undue threats to safety; complicity and intent to do harm.

          In my first six months at the Arizona State Hospital, circa early January 2011-June, 2011, I was pretty freaking amazed to learn that not only were there constant occurrences of staff misconduct at ASH, but even more so that my good faith efforts to report the worst of the things that I witnessed or experienced first hand were only leading to clear resentment and overt retaliation from numerous members of the staff most close to my flow of treatment during that period of time. Initially, I very ignorantly presumed that my reports would be appreciated by the higher ranking staff that I sincerely cooperated with via the suggested procedures in this regard. But even my first primary attending psychiatrist, Dr. L. Patel, openly tried to dissuade me from reporting wrongdoing, which in fact led to a conflict between the two of us. The whole experience was mind blowing at times, and my ability to comprehend how it is that such substandard practices could still exist given the many years of health care reform specific to state mental hospitals, etc., was very limited from day one. In time, I made the choice to remain actively dedicated to advocating for myself and on behalf of all the patients at ASH by doing all that I could to report wrongdoing in as loud a manner as I could muster given my circumstances. Please note before I continue with my summary descriptions of some of the ongoing grievance issues that I am still trying to meaningfully resolve, that day to day, I experienced myriad incidents involving a variety of patient abuse, often fairly low key stuff, but too often events that clearly bordered on brutality and blatant criminal conduct. I found it impossible to go about my day to day treatment without encountering some or another form of unlawful conduct, it was really bizarre at times how rampant the incidents cropped up. All the while, I was doing what I could with the minimal resources afforded patients to keep up my best efforts as self advocate, and it was very trying, at times, because many staff members became aware of my efforts in this context, and I was constantly challenged and even harassed by staff in ways that I know would shock any reasonably ethical person. Such staff members very clearly resented the fact that I was not willing to simply ignore the crap that I saw and experienced, and I came to realize that the issues as a whole are endemic to the very culture of ASH employees.
     The accounting of these grievance issues are rather long, and hopefully not too convoluted or otherwise onerous in terms of reading them. That said, I very much appreciate any time and energy taken to consider the full breadth of my concerns as they stand today. The well being of the patients still at ASH, as well as anybody effected by the shortcomings at ASH or throughout the state managed care system, is very much at stake.   

       As described above in Issue #1, an advocate from the state office for human rights initiated and  prepared a formal grievance on my behalf in relation to the events of late May, 2011, wherein I was unlawfully subjected to coercion, undue restriction, and other like administrative misconduct.. He conducted a very well founded investigation, and in late summer,  he submitted the grievance in the form a body of very serious and well researched allegations specific to the matter, including elements of wrongdoing that featured the actions of Dr. Pervais Ahkter and ASH Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle.   ASH received this grievance document on Friday, September 2, 2011, and on Tuesday, September 06, 2011, which was one business day (due to holiday) after ASH had received the grievance document, I was advised in a very short letter signed by Dr. Dingle, as well as the new ASH Chief Executive Officer, Corey Nelson, that I was being moved from the unit on which I had been accommodated to that point (Palo Verde East unit, for a total of seven full months) and over to another unit (Desert Sage East unit). No explanation for the move was provided to me nor to the most critical members of my treatment team, which flies in the face of requisite hospital procedure and several provisions of the Arizona Administrative Code, and no consideration at all was granted on my behalf in terms of how the move would be therapeutically beneficial to me, which essentially contradicts the basic mission of legitimate medical practice and is also in violation of not only hospital procedure, but of state law, as well. By virtue of the move, I was to be assigned an entirely new treatment team, including a new primary attending physician (thus removing Dr. Ahkter as my psychiatric doctor), medical (physical) doctor, social worker, rehabilitation therapist, and so on, and any concerns about continuity of care were also discarded for no justifiable reason. But most significantly, the move amounted to me being physically removed against my express wishes from Palo Verde East unit, which is without doubt one of the most peaceful units at ASH and an environment where for over 7 full months I had established healthy peer relationships with patients and at least some staff, and transplanted to Desert Sage East unit, which is without doubt one of the most violent units at ASH. Now, I did not initially realize that Desert Sage was so violent at first, and I was somewhat willing to trust the patient advocate and several other staff members who (I realized later) lied to me by advising me that Desert Sage East unit was both quieter and more peaceful than Palo Verde East. I knew already that I was placed on Palo Verde East unit upon my admission to ASH in late January, 2011, as per good faith discussions that my attending psychiatrist in Tucson, Dr. Stoker of University of Arizona Medical Center, had conducted on my behalf.  In those discussions, and before the decision to send me to ASH had been made, Dr. Stoker had talked to me about the possibility that ASH could be a dangerous place, and he assured me that he had been in touch with ASH administrators, who had in turn assured him that ASH was set up in such a way that consideration was always given to the proven personality and behavioral characteristics of incoming patients. Specifically, ASH had told Dr. Stoker that there were units designed to accommodate the more peaceful patients (vs. the more violent, etc.), and based on my characteristics, Dr. Stoker had very clearly directed ASH to place me in the most peaceful setting available. And indeed, in the seven months that I was on Palo Verde East, I had not been physically assaulted in even the slightest degree except by the rogue staff technician Elaine Traylor. But, again, I was not initially aware of the violent atmosphere on Desert Sage East. As matter of practicality, I was preparing to file a grievance about merely relating to the fact that no explanation had been offered to me concerning why I had been transferred to Desert Sage East, or how the move would benefit me therapeutically, because it was very, very obvious from the timing of the move that it had everything to do with the grievance document that had been submitted on my behalf exactly one business day before the decision was made to move me. All in all, as I saw it already, the action was wrong enough that it deemed at least some attention. But within 48 hours of my arrival on Desert Sage East, I was very seriously threatened by more than one patient on my new unit, and my concerns about the reasons underlying the transfer from Palo Verde East greatly deepened as I came to realize that I had been purposely placed in an extremely dangerous environment where the likelihood of me being attacked and possibly gravely injured was higher than any I had ever experienced, and only aggravated the well reasoned fear that I had about the staff sanctioned, radically dangerous conditions at ASH. The atmosphere on Desert Sage east is like night and day in comparison with the conditions on Palo Verde East; from the get go, there were men openly selling and arguing aboutt illicit substances, for example, including several who recognized me and openly resented me because of my prior involvement in advocating against the presence of illicit substances at ASH, an activity that I had engaged in with full cooperation from Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Human Rights officials, and to my knowledge, ASH' administration was fully aware of that activity, which implies that they were fully aware of the hazard posed to me on Desert Sage East unit by such individuals. I was certainly aware of it, and I made this clear when I was advised that I was to be moved to Desert Sage, but the ASH patient advocate, Sonya Serda, ignored my statements to that effect. I was also subjected to some very disturbing staff misconduct almost immediately after I arrived on Desert Sage East, including one situation wherein a clearly unstable staff nurse named Tracy literally incited several patients into attacking me, one of whom violently struck me on the shoulder, while another began a process of verbal harassment and threats that continued on for months and eventually led to the same man being criminally charged after he attacked me on the patient mall (this, too, another story in itself for a later time, wherein ASH staff went out of their way to try and and alter the truth of the incident in order to invalidly implicate me). In closing, I very recently learned that a man on Desert Sage East named Joe Saucedo Gallegos, whom by virtue of this unlawful unit transfer I was forced to share a bathroom with for the majority of my time on that unit and who constantly threatened me with physical harm and otherwise harassed well to the knowledge of ASH staff, had in fact brutally beaten two young boys to death with a baseball bat only a few years ago, and that man is now out of the hospital and at the very beginning of serving two life sentences for that crime. These things did occur. I am being 100% truthful about every aspect of this accounting. The good faith and entirely lawful self advocacy that I began engaging in at ASH as a matter of surviving the horrendously corrupt conditions there compelled ASH clinicians and administrative officials to subject me to malfeasant retaliation that put me in grave danger for my life, not to mention my state of mind as a patient. The basic fact that this whole process was carried out in such unbridled fashion only furthers my basic position that the conditions at ASH are absolutely out of control, and that the situation is deserving of nothing short of federal intervention. That said, I am again willing to offer my sincere plea for support from anyone who shares my concerns for the rights of mentally ill persons in the state of Arizona, with particular respect for the clearly egregious conditions at ASH. This has to stop, now. If you feel you are up to it, get in touch with me, please. paoloreed@gmail.com