Bare Bone Facts: The Reality of Cory Nelson's Ineptitude As They Stood in 2011. 

Briefly. I feel it may be worth noting that in late 2011, in more than one letter sent to ADHS/BHS Director Will Humble not long after former Arizona State Hospital Supervisor Cory Nelson was hired, I directly expressed the obvious hazards posed by Nelson's planned alterations to security standards and related staff cutbacks, at that time when he first made such planning clear to his staff (some of whom subsequently shared with their feelings with me, which definitely came in the form of worry, as they arose in Nelson's first five months on the job, which were my last five months as patient/consumer at ASH). I also sent communications in this specific context to at least one federal agency, for I was willing to hear the concerns of staff at the time, and able in my own right to recognize the hazards posed to myself and my patient-peers. 

BARE BONE FACT #1: During the 13 full months that I was hospitalized at ASH, I did as a patient and consumer of services required to be provided by the overall Arizona system of health care personally depend upon the direct support of security staff on five separate occasions. Each one of those specific moments in my experiences at ASH are on record, and I am in fact in touch with one former member of ASH's radically downsized security staff who has agreed (with me and my editorial staff) to testify in terms of his own knowledge specific to this issue, and a range of other areas of concern, should that opportunity arise. As such, I feel the need to clarify how volatile the environment at ASH is- it is, after all, an insane asylum, and no level of political incorrectness alters that simple fact. But even beyond the presence of seriously mentally ill ASH patients who at times have little to no control over their own behavior, the role of security at ASH also extends to the potential risks posed by unstable or otherwise out of control staff. Even Cory Nelson acknowledged the high level of stress associated with working at ASH, and in this context, there are those times when individual staff members effectively lose control of themselves. Not all staff, mind you, but some, and I contend that this too is an inherent element of the realities in places like ASH. But that is far from reasonable justification, and staff understood this better than anyone, in my opinion. Indeed, my need to have security staff act in my defense includes at least one incident  which actually arose due to highly aggressive, arguably unstable ASH staff; a person who, in this case, engaged in creating violent outbursts that consequently triggered very violent reactions from one or more equally volatile patients.

     Specifically, less than two weeks after my unlawfully forced removal from the most peaceful unit at ASH to the most violent [Desert Sage east, September, 2011], during a state of stress related rage that I had nothing to do with, a recently hired female nurse supervisor named Tracy did in fact state to the patients gathered at the time, "SEE THIS GUY?!? HE IS AGAINST US!", which did as a matter of fact lead one very unstable patient who was well known for her violence to attack me. Her behavior at that time also revealed the bare bones fact that this senior member of ASH nursing staff had a predisposed willingness to threaten me on the basis of my having openly voiced my concerns staff misconduct of my unit of  origin (Palo Verde east), which highlights the fact that my transfer had been arranged so as to represent clear retaliation (in order to intimidate me into silence), which is in grave defiance of federal law (as per the specific protections included in the Americans With Disabilities Act.)That event led to an all out fight between at least 3-4 other patients- not me, however, I immediately moved away from both the nurse as well as the patient(s)- and when security staff responded, as per the nurse's report that I was the basis of this particular crisis, they literally ended up asking me "WHY DID SHE CALL US ABOUT YOU?" These security staff knew me better than that, including the fact that I had no history as a violent person, "troublemaker", etc., at ASH or anywhere else, and therein were capable of providing me with due protection in the specific context my status as a patient at ASH at that moment.

The fact is, former and current security understand the realities at ASH far better than Cory Nelson does, and all major decisions that he made in relation of his so called "Culture of Care" approach to managing ASH were unilateral and 100% against the interest of anyone under his authority (made, as such, with no direct input of the vast majority ASH staff), and his related claims specific to the conditions at ASH today are highly inaccurate, to the point of being outright treacherous. As the record shows today (illustrated in Phoenix area ABC Ch 15 reports of late), the removal of such security staff at ASH has created an undeniable crisis, through and through. In this specific context,  Cory Nelson  has clearly shown a fundamental incapability to understand the significance of such issues, as they apply in any/all such public health care facilities. He is an utter incompetent, in my opinion, and his record to date goes feel beyond the implications highlighted in this instance. More troubling is the simple fact he has maintained his inept management practices at ASH at the expense of Arizona taxpayers, and has even been promoted within the greater ADHS/BHS network, in graphic defiance of applicable law and policy, to the direct detriment of the care needs of ASh's seriously mentally ill and disabled patient community, and as per this promotion, that of the behaviorally disabled population in AZ as a whole. Business as usual under the ultimate authority of ADHS czar, Will Humble, and his consortium of ne'erdowells in BHS, etc. 

AS I HAVE STATED ALREADY, IN TERMS OF THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE AT ASH, IT IS NOT THE PATIENTS THAT I NEEDED TO MOST WORRY ABOUT- IT WAS STAFF, HANDS DOWN, ON ANY DAY, IN ANY VARIATION OF SETTINGS, WHO MOST CAUSED ME HIGH ANXIETY, AND OTHER SUCH HARM TO MY STATE OF MIND. MY COMING TO UNDERSTAND THIS IS BASED ON 100% REAL EXPERIENCE AS IT PLAYED OUT DURING MY TIME THERE, AND IS IN NO WAY A FIGMENT OF MY IMAGINATION, BASED ON DISHONESTY AS A PERSON, OR ANY OTHER LIKE DYNAMIC. 

IT IS REALLY THAT BAD.

  
And as with the majority of my assertions to date, I have the documents to prove these allegations, as they have been presented to date.  

This is not to say that I have any problem whatsoever with ABC Ch15's claim of having been the first report source in this context, for indeed, they responded to and reported the very real impacts of these alterations once they had indeed come to cause very real harm to the ASH operation, in general. My point is simply to say that it did not and still does not take a rocket scientist to recognize how graphically inept this planning was and still is, today. 

Important to note, also, that when I did in fact express my deep reservations about these changes to ADHS Director Will Humble, I did so out of direct concern for the patient community at ASH, who were and are still deserving of the optimum safety standards that Nelson's unilateral, utterly boneheaded operational actions eliminated, across the board. I made that clear to Humble at that time, and as stated, I have clearly documented data to prove it.

As a matter of practicality, I will just state here and now that: 

   "Yes, Of course!" … Senior staff- etc.- at The Arizona State Hospital will deny all aspects of my allegations to date, should they ever be questioned or so much as asked to comment in any forum whatsoever.  That's the norm anytime direct reports of wrongdoing in any context arise at ASH- across the board, standard practice- regardless of how well documented such reports are. This fact is readily evident as per the major media reports of both Phoenix's ABC Ch 15, as well as AZ Family Ch 12, wherein Cory Nelson blatantly lied- on camera- in several interviews specific to his actions as short time Supervisor at ASH. I further attest to the fact that many of my patient/peers at ASH, and not to mention some number of ASH staff (the "good people"- you know who you are, friends indeed, and I mean that), shared my deep disdain for the graphically unlawful misconduct of a wide range of ASH staff, which I personally found to be utterly insulting to the medical profession in all senses. But that's just how it is at ASH, and the only reason that our shared concerns are patently ignored has everything to do with ASH being a facility assigned to care for seriously mentally ill adults. The dynamics specific to how and why this is impacts patients and staff alike, in the sense that even staff are advised:

"What happens at ASH stays at ASH."

Or as the current Chief Medical Officer at ASH, Laxman Patel, put it to me not long before we parted ways:

"What do you expect? 
This is the state hospital." 

paoloreed@gmail.com