"There Is No Abuse Here." At Last! Following six months of writing, and the publication of hundreds of thousands of words of raw (unedited) text, compiled today in over 135 full length articles, all reviewed by over 6400 visitors to this blog (to date), a current employee of The Arizona State Hospital has finally blessed us with a comment. Lord, stop the movement of the earth, why don't you? For Virginia B. has spoken!
Virginia BaccelliaAugust 20, 2012 6:34 AM
"July 12... I don't know what bad civil unit you are referring to but I work at ash and like any other job there are no perfections. There is no abuse here. The nurses are actually cordial to the clients and staff have to float to fill in open positions in order to assist the patients.
I work Palo verde and float the iron wood and desert sage a lot. As providers we have to do what is best to keep the hospital safe for clients and staff. So to post this non sense is nonsense."
Thank you so much for your input, Virginia! I cannot easily express the sheer joy that has accompanied your comments to my humble little writing project. I sometimes feel as though I am a tiny little fragment of humanity in a sea of waste, for I get so few comments from my readers, much less anybody from ASH proper; and I have been green with envy over the fact that the only web posted staff complaints about the out of control state of affairs at ASH are always directed to Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson's personal website, rather to this blog. I mean, for crying out loud, who is he to get all the attention! But that is alright, and I am at risk of digression. I remain a humble writer, at best, and in the meantime, I hope you can find the time, Virginia, to read some more of my stuff, because lord knows, if you feel there is no patient abuse whatsoever at ASH, than you are sure have plenty of room for dissent. Because I challenge you, in effect (and in purely friendly terms, for I am as much a passivest today, as I was when I entered ASH), based on nothing other than my own good faith testament in direct contradiction to your opinion. In my opinion, patient abuse at ASH does occur, and often enough, that I refuse to let it go. I'm sorry, Virginia, that is honestly how I feel about your feeling that my "non sense is nonsense". But, hey! It's all good! If you do choose to visit again, I will continue to welcome your tidy little comments with open arms and a smile. I am sure that if you know best, you will do the right thing.
Meantime, I think I will share one- just one- very specific example of proven patient abuse (proven by the record, Virginia, on file there at ASH) that was imparted on me by one the ASH nurses, who you, Virginia, patently characterize in your comments to this blog as being "actually cordial." And feel free, Virginia, to look into this from your end of the conduit, so you can get the other side of the story, and all that. Specifically, I am referring to the often seemingly-bronzed goddess-not platinum blond named Mary Anne (it is not a tan, by the way, she uses some sort of skin dye on herself, or at least that's what she claims. Yeah, I know- freaky as hell!). She acted as charge nurse for the entirety of 2011 on Palo Verde East unit, and to my knowledge, she is still there today. She should, as such, be able to spot.
In late July, 2011, at about 9 p.m. in the evening, when I attempted to exercise my lawful right to place a phone call to an advocate from the ADHS Office of Human rights named John Gallagher, Mary Anne instructed the phone operator to refuse to place my call. When I attempted, in the same calm tone of voice that I am satisfyingly well known for, to inquire as to why she, Mary Anne, was suddenly of mind to believe that she has more authority than state and federal law specific to the rights of hospital patients in this specific context, she oh-so cordially declared, at a moderately intense volume of voice (she yelled, end of story) the following verbatim statement:
"Oh, no you don't buster- not on my watch! I know what you are up to!"
Now, just so as not to give you the impression that I am weaving some sort of dastardly web of scandal designed to unreasonably discredit the service of each and every staff person at ASH, Virginia, (because there are- actually- at least a few good staff there at ASH, including on the nursing staff) I encourage you to go take a look at the posted advisory(s) that can now be found mounted on the wall directly over the patient phone stations there on Palo Verde East Unit (and in theory, as per ASH's sole patient advocate, Sonya Serda, above the phone stations in every other unit throughout the entire facility); as you can see, those advisories very clearly state that ASH patients have the unalienable right to place calls to advocates of any kind at any time of day or night. And guess what, Virginia? My personal efforts to see that Mary Anne's oh-so cordially demented belief that she has (had) the right to violate patients' fundamental civil and human right to freely exercise the right of self advocacy in this context led, in time, to those advisories being posted, there where they are directly above the phones, (presuming, that is, that they haven't been unlawfully removed), placed as such so as to ensure that the cordiality of certain ASH staff members doesn't- you know- lose touch with reality in terms of such matters. As in, the reality of law, and well establisher standards of care, and basic civility, and all that other pesky stuff. And as I have already stated, Virginia, this entire matter was documented following my ASH grievance about this event, all of which I kept the records to. I did that, Virginia, because I knew then, as I do now, that abuse of patients at ASH, people JUST LIKE ME, occurs as randomly as do the abused/neglected children in Arizona's Child Protective Services, and yet as regularly as a 25 year vegetarian's daily bowel movement. It is all pretty much the same, but only in Arizona, this day in age.
Virginia is correct, of course, in declaring that "in no job are there any perfections." An odd use of the English language, akin to her characterizing the "non sense" of my writing as "nonsense" (Ouch! Now that hurt!), but her point remains sound in my book. There are definitely no perfections to the practices of staff at ASH. And, of course, Mary Anne the Palo Verde east charge nurse did abuse her authority as a nurse and therein grossly violated my rights as a person, patient, and consumer in this one specific example (I have many, many other well documented examples). This is-indeed- far from perfect; far enough, in fact, that I had- but rejected- the opportunity to file a pretty darn serious formal complaint with the Arizona Board of Nurses after I was encouraged to do so by the same human rights advocate that I have already mentioned. There is no denying it, and the only reason I chose not to take the issue up with the licensing board at that time was due to my heartfelt concern for the patient community at ASH as a whole- because if there's anything someone like Mary Anne the Palo Verde east chargenurse doesn't need, it's another excuse/justification/resentment to abuse the patients.
And at the time it occurred, by the way, it very much- er, uh- actually frightened the shit out of me, a seriously mentally disabled adult affected by major depressive disorder, for I was on the one hand similarly abused as a child by an adult woman who I had been taught to rely upon, while on the other hand, my inner awareness of humanistic autonomy and my right to self determination is directly central to my sense of a safe existence in a potentially humane world.
Thus, oh Virginia, these are very serious matters that flow right to the core of fundamental constitutional and internationally recognized human rights. Perhaps it is simply not possible for certain ASH staff (such as you?) to grasp these realities. Maybe it is simple denial, which is understandable, because who wants to be connected to a place as out of whack with common decency as I feel ASH is? My experiences, which admittedly are not always going to match those of ASH staff, taught me the hard way that patient abuse is somewhat the norm at The Arizona State Hospital. I cannot take responsibility for why or how certain staff at ASH somehow don't see this, whether it is an active choice or whether they are simply too dense, or whatever. Of course it could be that some of the worst staff at Ash are truly- as in actually- EVIL. At a minimum, they can be goddamn mean, and where simple meanness fits into accepted patient care, I really don't know.
Whatever the case, any reasonably sound minded American knows that patient abuse is going to occur at some level in virtually any-all hospital setting, from the fanciest to the most run down, and while the abuse may or may not be all that horrific or extensive in some hospitals, it is also common knowledge to anybody familiar with state mental facilities that patient abuse is particularly insidious in settings like ASH, which is Arizona's only long term public mental health facility. No other public facilities to stake examples or comparisons to, no reasonably sound/objective source of history to rely upon; a vacuum, and nothing more, or less. It is that bad, the abuse, because to some, it is all a mystery, as though, indeed, lost in a vacuum. The voice(s) of troubled mentally ill persons simply strikes some people as inherently awkward, at best, and incomprehensible, at worst. We the mentally ill are unstable, after all: How, then, could a seriously mentally ill person know abuse when they see or experience it? To some, these concerns are undefined and unidentifiable, somewhat without meaning or just cause, and too far out of the given scope of understanding. Crisis personified.
Virginia! What a sturdy little trooper you are! Thank you again for dropping in. Please do tell all of your friends and associates there at The Arizona State Hospital to hop on board with your own fundamental right to share your feelings about this blog at any time. Anonymously. Or via a spotlight, for all I care. Whatever. It is your constitutional right (remember?), and I will take all the support I can get. And believe it or not, Virginia, your input is very useful to this blog. Invaluable, in fact, for inquiring minds want to know about people like you, and we really do want to understand something about how/why in the hell the things at ASH could generate so little reaction from staff.
On that note, I will maintain my encouragement for anybody of like mind in terms of my dedication to defending and preserving the rights of ASH patients and beyond to visit my April 30, 2012 "Resource Ideas" article, and take whatever steps you deem most suitable to your way of doing things in supporting this cause as it stands today. Myself, I am a moderately well trained researcher and writer. With a legal background. Who worked in EMS for years. Who just so happened to extensively study health care ethics in a well respected college honors program. Who taught high school english in a private academy (and, thus, has a bit of concern about Virginia's language skills- where is my red pen?). Who was married to a nurse practitioner for 8 years, and so on. And oh yeah, I am seriously mentally ill, too. (Go figure: "How can that be? He thinks, walks, and talks like a man. How could he possibly be mentally ill?").
And while at ASH, where I found myself tossed into the surreality of a hospital operating at least 40-50 years behind the times (as though in a third world country, like Pakistan, or India, or the Philippines), and as my horrifically negative experiences at ASH stacked up like cord wood in direct proportion to my increased need and desire to take part in my environment, a research project literally sprung right into my lap.
I didn't want it- it was thrust upon me like a bad case of warts. And the administrators and clinicians at ASH effectively begged for it.
In my world, as a writer, this is as close to perfection as it gets. But close, and only close, because as Virginia has so wisely declared:
"Like any other job there are no perfections".
IN CLOSING: Now I am writing about it. Religiously, with little to no concern for the fallout, personal gain, or fear of the pain of reminding myself, day after day, of the plight of my peers at ASH. Knowing as I do the cruelty of Akhter, Dy, Roxas-Rojas, and the all rest (including at least a few of the ASH nurses), it is simply something that someone has to address. So I guess it may as well be me. It is a bitter pill to swallow, and yet it is as clear as a northern New Mexico sky in early fall: Patient abuse in any form and to any degree whatsoever is inhumane, criminal, and purely unacceptable. The substandard medical-mental health care practices at ASH needs to stop now.
paoloreed@gmail.com
