No Electric Wheel Chair for You, Audrey P.! Herein one more prime example of cold hearted cruelty and blatant abuse at the Arizona State Hospital. Wherein, for a period of no less than 5-7 years the clinical staff at the Arizona State Hospital has denied a woman with no legs and only one arm access to an electric wheel chair, while foreign trained psychiatrists subject patients to culturally taboo and blatantly unlawful standards of care and treatment that fly in the face of common understandings of American democracy and international human rights.

      It is common knowledge that psychiatric care and related treatment relies on sound communication. In this context, many people refer to the field of psychiatry as somewhat of an art, and I have come to wholeheartedly agree with that idea, because the fundamental elements of trust and reliability necessary to carry on a healthy psychiatric relationship flow from the critical one on one patient to doctor interactions that underlie such treatment. At ASH, however, it was apparent to me rather quickly that my primary attending physician(s) did not give a rat's ass whether I trusted them or not, because to most of the clinical staff at ASH, the relationship is purely about power, and the doctors wield a peculiar authority that's only granted to them through their relatively unique positions at the Arizona State Hospital. Anybody familiar with the history of state mental hospitals is at least somewhat aware that facilities like ASH are breeding grounds for abuse, and in my observations, the doctors I worked most closely with at ASH carried on their practices in extreme defiance of commonly acknowledged standards of decency and kindness. It is terrifying to experience inhumane abuses of authority in a hospital setting, and what's most shocking is that at least several of the physicians I interacted with on a regular basis were seemingly incapable of understanding how grossly egregious their conduct often was. In this sense, the clinicians at ASH sometimes struck me as downright ignorant in terms of common ethics, and they were insultingly inept in terms of their communication skills. In the case of my primary care physician-psychiatrists at ASH, I begrudgingly came to accept that these problems were basically due to the fact that my doctors were all foreigners, in both terms of cultural backgrounds as well as education. My first psychiatrist (Patel) went to medical school in his native country, India, the second (Ahkter) in his native country, Pakistan, and the fourth (who's name I am forgetting at the moment...) in her native country, the Philippines. And at the risk of seeming culturally insensitive, or worse, I will just say it:    
         None of these nations are recognized for their stances on human rights or related practicing of democratic values, while here in the United States, there is a traditional emphasis on independence and self-determination.
      
      So, here is a quick tale about one of the really disturbing things I came upon at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) that may very well relate to my social theories in this context. I had been there maybe 2-3 weeks, when in early February, 2011, I met a very nice young woman named Audrey P., who has been wheel chair bound since losing both of her legs and one arm in a near fatal train accident just NW of Tucson maybe 7-8 years ago. Audrey can be seen pretty regularly outside on the patient mall pushing herself around with her one arm in a mechanical wheel chair, which I must admit, is one of the saddest things I have ever in my life witnessed. It is, in fact, one of the saddest things that anyone with half a conscience might happen to witness at ASH, a one armed woman laboring away, literally inching her way up and down the mall, while staff and patients virtually blow by her at a full walking pace as though she is standing still. I hadn't known Audrey P. very long before I ask her how in the hell it could be that she didn't have an electric wheel chair, and she told me that her doctor wouldn't allow her to have one. Now, there are bound to be any number of goof ball stories floating around when you live in a population of mentally disturbed persons, so I took this with a relative grain of salt, and asked Audrey P. if she in her own right had ever looked into getting an electric wheel chair, and  she told me that no, she hadn't never done that, so I decided to see what I could come up with. Now, I had no grand visions of charitably saving the day for the poor woman, it simply seemed like the least I could do, given her obvious hardship and the fact that I had so much free time (it's not as though patients are steeped in therapy and what not at ASH and on average, I had several hours of free time on any given day to read, write, draw, etc.). So I took this tiny little cause with me into the patient library, where I came upon a directory of resources for disabled persons and in that directory I came upon a section dedicated to the topic of wheel chairs. Within one hour I had drafted a straight forward inquiry letter wherein I described the fact that I had a friend in the Arizona State Hospital who had a very real need for a electronic wheel chair, and I also made clear that I was not a doctor and could have nothing more to do with the matter, and asked that anybody willing and able to help Audry P. with this should feel free to to contact Audry P.'s treatment team there at the Hospital.  I then printed up copies of this simple one page inquiry and on April 8, 2011, mailed it to the following seven organizations:

          1) Arizona Community Foundation, Phoenix, AZ    
          2) Margaret T. Morris Foundation, Prescott, AZ           
          3) Disability Funding News, Silver Springs, MD  
          4) Arizona Department of Economic Security
          5) AZ Center for Disability Law, Phoenix     
          6) Friends of Disabled Adults and Children, Stone Mt. GA
          7) Mobility International, USA, Eugene, OR

     At the time, I fully explained to Audrey P. that I had put the letters into the mail, and explained to her that I was not going to be able to do anything beyond that, telling her to be sure and talk to her primary attending physician, Dr. Rojas, about it, and that they very possibly would be hearing form one or another of the seven resources that I sent the letter to. Audrey P. in turn, was appreciative of my action. Yep. A good deed done, right, and all I could think at the time was how messed up it was that somebody else hasn't already gone about dong this simply thing, chocking the situation up to the basic bizarreness ASH, which I had already pegged as very strangely operated facility.
      On April 22, I asked Audrey P. if there had been any developments, and she told me that her primary attending physician, a psychiatrist named Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas, was angry at her, for some reason, and at me, too, for "interfering" with Audrey P.'s treatment. Naturally, I was pretty shocked at this, so I asked a staff person who I knew took part in Audrey P.s monthly treatment planning meetings about it, and she told that it was true! This staff person then went on to inform me that several of the contacts I had made had been in touch with Dr. Ramos-Roxas as a matter of offering to help Audrey P. acquire an electronic wheel chair of her own, but Dr. Ramos-Roxas had basically discarded these good faith responses into the nearest trash can. The staff person also informed me that Dr. Ramos-Roxas' position on the issue was that ash had provided Audrey P. with two prosthetic legs and one prosthetic arm, but that Audrey P. had not taken any initiative to learn how to use the prosthetic devices, this disqualifying herself of the right to an electric wheel chair.
     I don't know quite else to say about his one. As always, I will attest to the validity of my experiences in this case. The fact is, anybody who has spent much time at ASH has very likely seen Audrey P., moving slower than cold maple syrup in her mechanical wheel outside on the patient mall. It is freaking ridiculous, beyond anything I have ever witnessed. But such are the conditions at the Arizona State Hospital, this state's only long term public mental health facility. So here again, an opportutnity for anybody interested in this crap to get involved. I encourage you to contact the Arizona State Hospital at (602) 244-1331 in order to advocate for Audrey P. at this time. Simple stuff, and although hospital will be unable to so much as verify her very existance, as per privacy laws and so on, if you clarify your awareness of the fact that this young woman has been denied a n electric wheel chair for all these years and that she has as much right to an electric wheel chair as anybody else!!!, you will have made a difference. Likewise, if you feel like you might wnt to get involved with fighting for the rights of all of the patients at the Arizona State Hospital, please get in touch with me at: paoloreed@gmail.com