RE: OAH Case #2012c-BHS-0338-DHS The Evolution Of A Grievance: Wherein, following over one full year of systematic suppression of my right to due process in relation to a criminally imposed sequence of administrative abuse of authority at The Arizona State Hospital, I prepare to go to hearing.

THIS ARTICLE DIRECTLY RELATES TO SEVERAL PRIOR ARTICLES CONCERNING THE EVER EVOLVING DISPOSITION OF THE ABOVE REFERENCED CASE. 

Good news on the legal front: In representing myself in this case (July 16, 2012) on behalf of the patients at The Arizona State Hospital in a hearing of The AZ Office of Administrative Hearings (Phoenix), I presented testimony (I had a great expert witness) and evidence in support my contention that admin. and clinical staff at ASH willfully abuse their given authority as a matter of standard practice with no concern whatsoever for and in gross violation of patient rights, and the issue of the state's failure to provide the court with any/all relevant data arose yet again; the judge in the case subsequently ordered me as well as the state's representative counsel (assistant AZ Attorney General, Joel "the mortician" Rudd) to produce material that the state originally tried to bar as evidence, and following the judge's order, the state formally challenged the order as a matter of keeping said evidence out of the light. Yesterday, I got word that the judge has rejected opposing counsel's challenge in support of my having requested that all/any relevant evidence be included in the the judge's consideration of this matter. A small yet very critical victory of sorts, wherein for a moment at least I went toe to toe with the biggest law firm in AZ (the AG) and snuffed their blatant attempts to suppress crucial evidence. The state (opposing counsel) has two weeks to further challenge the judge's newest holding in this context, and knowing the system, they probably will. Time again to wait and see what happens next.

     Thus far in my work as a self represented advocate for my own rights as well as those of the patient community at The Arizona State Hospital as a whole, I have always requested for each and every aspect of relevant data be included as evidence. This fundamentally basic approach applied whenever I filed good faith grievances while still hospitalized at ASH between Jan. 2011 and Feb. 2012;  and I have continued with it at every applicable stage of my efforts to fight the Hospitals' and The AZ Department of Health Services office of Grievances and Appeals (ADHS/OGA) obvious willingness to suppress such data as these issues have progressed up through the applicable bodies of procedural review. But in each particular case, the various components of relevant evidence that I always included as a matter of standard practice in my grievance submissions and related followup have been systematically distorted and suppressed at ASH and in the offices of ADHS/OGA, causing a convoluted mish-mash of shortsighted procedural violations which today underlie the relative disposition of my ongoing work in this context.     
     At this late date, with specific reference to this case as well all four of the other cases I have taken to hearing in The Office Of Administrative Hearings (OAH), I can assuredly state that:

   A) If the patient advocate at ASH, Sonya Serna, had reasonably done her job at those times that I initially brought concerns about patient abuse to her office- at least in a manner consistent with my ideas of what patient advocacy means, and; 

   B) If the various representatives of ADHS/OGA, including but not limited to Theresa Bedoni and Kara Burke, had been willing to abide by the provisions of the Arizona Administrative Code, rather than go around the mountain and back in terms of trying to limit the flow of applicable relevant data, and;

   C) If ADHS Office of Behavioral Health Services Director Margery Ault had fulfilled her obligations and meaningfully included all relevant data as it existed when each of these cases were formally referred to OAH, rather than acting in manner consistent with that of her underlings and further suppressing all relevant data and evidence….

     Then we wouldn't be where we are today.

   All of this avoidance of responsibility has been at the direct expense of my own emotional and psychological wellbeing, and as such, has also allowed the administrators and clinicians at ASH to carry on with their substandard care practices at the direct expense of each and every patient in ASH at this time; and it has all been a wasteful abuse of taxpayer funded resources in terms of the time and energy that it's obviously taken for the various state agency employees involved in this procedural wrongdoing to do all they can to avoid performing the basic terms of their respective positions with the state. It clearly follows that there is no one single motivating factor more critical to understanding this resistance other than the undeniable presence of graphically out of control avoidance of accountability and meaningful oversight. These people, from the verbally and physically abusive technician and nursing staff, to the administratively abusive misconduct of the Hospital's executive officers and their representative counsel in the AZ Attorney General's office, and to the highly unethical psychiatric doctors, are clearly willing to do whatever they have to in order to avoid being exposed for who they are. It is all about preserving a status quo, it is about job security, it is about incompetence and ineptitude, and it is about bloodthirsty greed and power . They watch each others backs, these sorts of people, which is nothing unheard of in the long and well researched annals of bureaucratic criminality, and so deeply share the responsibility of years of administrative corruption that no one of them is willing to come forward and report this nature of wrongdoing, for to do so would only ensure their own respective exposure in this context and the inevitable downfall that would follow. It is like a row of dominos, in effect, and I am willing to bet that as soon one of these rat bastards caves under the pressure that I am dedicated to imposing via my investigative work and related writing, the rest of them will similarly come to earth, as well. Hopefully, they will splat like rotten melons, which would only match, as such, their given lack of character; Akhter, Dy, Roxas-Rojas, Dingle, Morris, L. Patel, and so on.      
      I attest to the following: While hospitalized at ASH, I felt a fear that I have yet to shake, which came about on May 26-27, 2011, as soon as I realized that the administrators at ASH were willing to ignore the very real threat posed to public safety when they willfully tried to cover up the May, 2011, escape of Jesus Murietta; my fears were actualized and confirmed as being legitimate three months later when April Mott was brutally murdered by Jesus Murietta, particularly when I witnessed the Hospitals' continued commitment to denying the significance of these specific events. It is not too hard to grasp the fact that if the the one's running ASH are willing to put the greater public at risk in order to avoid accountability, then they are clearly willing to go to even greater measures in terms of putting individual ASH patients at risk on the same basis of selfish self preservation. I realized this, and in the same 2 week period of time, I experienced it firsthand.  
     From that point on in my time at ASH, I knew as all as I have ever known anything that ASH is a very, very dangerous place to find yourself, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with the seriously mentally ill patients at ASH.   
  
IN CLOSING: I grew really tired many, many months ago of having to reiterate the most fundamental precepts of applicable law and policy whenever I engage in good faith attempts to allow the persons entrusted with overseeing and caring for Arizona's most vulnerable population TO DO THEIR FREAKING JOBS. That's all it has ever come down to, me identifying a problem, and turning to whoever it might have been at the time bearing the basic responsibility of addressing said problem(s). Even when I myself was being subjected to gross and ongoing violations of my rights as a patient, person, and consumer while still hospitalized at The Arizona State Hospital, all I ever tried to do was follow suggested protocol when it came to asking the assigned representative professionals there at Arizona State Hospital to respond to my concerns as they arose. I attest to the fact that I had at least one ASH doctor ask me, "What? Do you think you can change the system?" (Dr. Laxman Patel, late April, 2011), while the ASH patient advocate (Sonya Serda) repeatedly tried to suggest that I was failing to pay due attention to my own treatment at ASH whenever I brought patient abuse to her attention, and on several occasions I got the run around in utterly clear fashion from ASH Chief Operating Officer Donna "You are soooo busted!"Noriega and ASH Supervisor Cory"crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson, with various lower level staff far too often working to label me as a trouble maker and overly grandiose pain in their relative asses. These things really happened, and the condition was seemingly permanent and unwavering. All of it, nothing short of systemic and endemic refusals to do the right thing in a moderately complex setting. 

     It is never too late to do the right thing. Patient abuse at The Arizona State Hospital does occur, and no degree of bottom feeding disagreement with my statements to this effect will deter me from continuing this uphill trod, as I say again, and again, and again, as necessary: The administrators and clinicians at ASH are operating at a level of substandard mental-medical health care as a matter of standard practice and they are getting away with it lock-stock-and barrel. I attest to this fact as it stands today, for I saw  and experienced these practices first hand for over thirteen full months. Patient abuse is criminal and inhumane, and there is no justification whatsoever for allowing it continue unabated in modern hospitals of any sort. The willingness of ASH staff to exploit and unfairly disregard the fundamental rights of the highly vulnerable patients there needs to be comprehensively addressed via a transparent process of oversight and accountability. Bottom line. Please see my April 30, 2012, "Resource Ideas" article, and determine how you can go about contributing to this cause (and I will be updating that resource base in the coming days, too).   
   
paoloreed@gmail.com