Brutal Discrimination: No Electric Wheel Chair For You, Audrey Peterson! Herein one more prime example of cold hearted cruelty and abuse at the Arizona State Hospital.

For period of no less than 5-7 years the clinical staff at the Arizona State Hospital has denied a woman with no feet or lower 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. Audrey Peterson's rights as a human being supersede the authority of any one person or representative staff at ASH or anywhere else in this nation. Bottom line.

Call ASH today (602)244-1331 and demand that Audrey Peterson be granted her full rights as a human being. 

THIS IS A REPUBLISHED VERSION OF AN EARLIER ARTICLE (see April 12, 2012: "No Electric Wheelcair For You, Audrey P!") CONCERNING THE CLINICAL STAFF AT THE ARIZONA STATE HOSPITAL'S REFUSAL TO GRANT A SEVERELY PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED WOMAN NAMED AUDREY PETERSON ACCESS TO AN ELECTRONICALLY POWERED WHEEL CHAIR DESPITE THE FACT THAT A NUMBER OF GOOD FAITH MANUFACTURERS  OF SUCH TECHNOLOGY EXPRESSED INTEREST IN PROVIDING A CHAIR TO HER.

 

U.S. Department of Justice

Americans with Disabilities Act

CENTRALLY INVOLVED ASH STAFF INCLUDE: DR. RUBY RAMOS-ROXAS, FORMER CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER DR. STEVEN DINGLE, AND SENIOR SOCIAL SERVICES REPRESENTATIVES.

       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 Peterson., who has been wheelchair bound since losing both of her legs and one arm in a near fatal train accident just NW of Tucson maybe 8-9 years ago. Audrey can be seen pretty regularly outside on the patient mall, struggling to push herself around with her one arm in a mechanical wheel chair. Without doubt, in terms of how unkindly some people treat others, this is one of the saddest things I have ever witnessed in my entire life; and the given reality that I encountered this horrible display of cruelty and neglect in a hospital setting, of all places, exceeds my capacities as a moral being. Such is the reality at The Arizona State Hospital, where anyone on the civil side of ASH with half a conscience will notice a one armed woman laboring away in a mechanical wheelchair, literally inching her way up and down the 1/4 mile long mall area, which is only partially paved, while able bodied staff and patients virtually blow by her at a full walking pace as though the woman doesn't even exist. Audrey Peterson is consequently denied reasonable access to the vast majority of therapeutic and recreational resources available to other patients at ASH, and she is subject to gross humiliation that cuts to the core of her fundamental human right to dignity.
                    
                                                        (Note: this is not a photo of Audrey P.)
     I  first met Audrey Peterson at one of the outdoor patio tables on the patient mall within 5-7 days of my early January, 2011, arrival to the civil section of The Arizona State Hospital. It was an astounding introduction, in no small part due the the pitiful sight of a one armed woman in a wheelchair that requires two arms to operate. After basic niceties, we got around to asking the often inevitable questions regarding why we were there, and as it turned out, we both had a history of depression and potentially lethal attempts at suicide. She then went on to the describe the fact that she had lain her body down on top of a major railroad track on the NW outskirts of Tucson after drinking an excess of alcohol, where she fell into a deep sleep, and that a train had come along at some point and run over both of her legs and one of her arms. In any such description of tragedy, with so dramatic a story line, the question of how in the heck anyone could possibly survive an accident of this magnitude unavoidably arises, and as we continued talking, it occurred to me that I recalled the actual Tucson news story about the event. I was, indeed, astounded to meet this woman, whose story had very much caught my attention at the time it occurred, both due to the drama of it, as well in the context of me presuming that the person involved in the incident when I heard about first heard about it must have had a death wish, something that I have long been able to relate to. I recall thinking "Oh my god... She survived something like that, this person, who surely must have chosen death, only to find herself left permanently maimed, yet still alive..."
       I am not entirely certain, but I think that in our initial conversation, I went on to ask Audrey Peterson how in the hell it could be that she didn't have an electric wheel chair, and she told "My doctor won't allow me to have one." I was further shocked to hear this addendum to her already tragic tale, the audaciousness of such a claim is still somewhat beyond my sensibility and relative comprehension; it so shocked my sense of humanity and common concern for others, that I was initially unable to respond. 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 initially took her statements with a grain of salt. I asked Audrey if she had, in her own right, 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. I also began asking patients and staff alike what they could tell me about Audrey Peterson's primary care physician Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas (a native Filipino woman who acquired her medical training in an unaccredited college in her home country), because I immediately realized that if I were to come to the conclusion that there was any merit to this account of at least one ASH' doctor's brutality, I was going to have to look into addressing the issue at some point in time. Such is my nature, but it is not an exclusive unique sense of conscientious reaction to such things, not in the United States, anyway.

        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 shockingly critical (yet 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

Audrey's                        A Powered Chair
Chair

       

     At the time, I fully explained to Audrey P. that I had put the letters into the mail, and I further  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 about it (Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas), and that her clinical treatment team would very possibly would be hearing from one or another of the seven resources that I sent the letter to. Audrey Peterson, in turn, was appreciative of my action. I explained to her that I had taken me less than 90 minutes of my time, and that the action should have been taken long before this.  
       It was, indeed, a simple act of faith and decent courtesy. 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 a very strangely operated facility. I had little idea, however, of where I was, in fact. 

      On April 22, I asked Audrey P. if there had been any developments, and she told me that her primary attending physician, 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 went on and further informed 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. I attest to this conversation, and can and will identify the staff member when the time comes, as she had already agreed to cooperate with any investigations into this matter. 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., but that, if Audrey was not willing to take the initiative to learn how to use the prosthetic devices, she has no right to an electric wheel chair.
          "Why not just take her mechanical wheelchair away while you are at it, Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas?!! We don't want Audrey getting away with anything, do we?"

      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 kindnesss.

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 is. 
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, Laxman Patel, went to medical school in his native country, India; the second, Pervaiz Ahkter, in his native country, Pakistan; and the third, Sylvia Dy, in her native country, the Philippines. None of them attended an accredited medical school. No offense to anybody not of American origin, but somethings are simply unacceptable in terms of America's minimal qualities of life, including qualified medical professionals.
And at the risk of seeming culturally insensitive, or worse, I will just say it:

         The Philippines, India, Pakistan: None of these nations are recognized for their stances on human rights or related practicing of democratic values, to say the least.  

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990

Full title	An Act to establish a clear and comprehensive prohibition of discrimination on the basis of disability

       I don't know quite else to say about this story. But I am of the opinion that any man or woman willing to deny Audrey Peterson the fullest comforts available to her as a physically disabled person is a criminal. As always, I will attest to the validity of my experiences in this case. And as stated, anybody who has spent much time at ASH has seen my friend Audrey Peterson trying to push herself with only her one arm, moving slower than cold maple syrup in her mechanical wheelchair outside on the patient mall. It is freaking ridiculous, beyond anything I have ever witnessed. It must stop.
    Such are the conditions at the Arizona State Hospital, the state's only long term public mental health facility.

IN CLOSING: So here again, a clear cause for you to get involved. Please visit my April 30, 2012 "Resources Ideas" article and consider how to take action today. I also encourage you to contact the Arizona State Hospital at (602) 244-1331 in order to advocate for Audrey Peterson at this time. Defy the Arizona Department of Health's willingness to ignore this matter, and speak out against any clinical statement to the effect that granting this woman a powered wheelchair is  against her welfare and interests as a patient there at ASH.

Audrey Peterson's rights as a human being supersede the authority of any one person or staff at ASH, bottom line. The Arizona State Hospital: (602)244-1331. Simple stuff, and although the hospital operators will be unable/unwilling to so much as verify Audrey Peterson's very existance, as per privacy laws and so on, if you clarify your awareness of the fact that this young woman has been denied an 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 have what it takes to get involved with fighting for the rights of all of the patients at the Arizona State Hospital, please get in touch with me: 

paoloreed@gmail.com