Halloween Fun Is No Joke When It Comes To The Arizona State Hospital

The above photo image (published in the Santa Fe Reporter, October 16, 2013) is drawn from a Halloween spook house sort of thing that is set up just down the road from my current residence in Santa Fe, NM, not far from where I grew up. I saw the scene weeks ago while riding my bicycle, and without any intended jest, I did immediately grasp a relevant significance as applicable to my deepest concerns about the Arizona State Hospital. From the skeletal nurse, reminiscent to the nth degree of the virtually ancient "war horse" nursing staff at ASH, who hold seniority over the vast majority of all other nurses; to the presence of an obviously at risk hospital patient; and a grave stone clearly reflective of some poor person who died as a consequence of the facility's perverted medical staff. As to the senior nursing staff at ASH and at least a few of the higher ranking psychiatric doctors there, these are people who worked at ASH during nearly recent periods of time when direct federal intervention was required in order to address highly unlawful clinical practices at ASH, which occur there as a matter of standard practice. The last time that such intervention arose, to my knowledge, was in the late 1990s, and had to do (in part) with graphically brutal restraint/isolation  practices and related abuses of Arizona's most seriously mentally ill and disabled citizens. The fact is, until the feds stepped in at at that time, ASH staff were willfully engaging in very egregious conduct that shocked the conscience of the public, and some of those same people are still at ASH today, including but not limited to Peggy the abusive and lazy white haired nurse, Dr. Laxman Patel, Dr. Ruby Ramos-Roxas, and any number of other like monsters who are incapable of abiding by commonly established codes of civility and related medical standards- until that is, the feds come in told them knock it the f--- off. In no uncertain terms, this is something I came to realize while I was there at ASH, and information came to me about such prior interventions, the simple fact that no person of conscience would have ever agreed to participate in such brutal treatment. 

Except at ASH, that is, where the treatment practices are somewhat necessarily ten steps behind the real world. This is the core reality when it comes to state mental hospitals, as proven again and again over the last century (if not more); and in this sense, I learned the hard way that nothing really changes when it comes to the presence in our society of individuals who are overtly sadeo-masochistic, and who actively seek out those places in the modern landscape where they know that they can get away with their sickeningly unjust misconduct. As with the recently prosecuted ASH security guard, Roger James Forney, who was exposed in local to Phoenix media as a child abusing pervert not quite one full year ago today, and had until that time also been engaged in psychologically abusing patients at ASH- such as myself, and I attest to that- through undue threats of physical harm, and related exploitation of his given authority at ASH. As a freaking security guard. These examples are 100% on point with the manner in which any range of sociopathic or outright psychopathic individuals go about setting themselves up in places where the targets of their sickening desires are vulnerable to attack, be it neighborhoods adjacent to schoolyards, alleyways in darkest corners of our town and cities, and so on. Patient abuse is highly illegal in any setting, and given that ASH is a facility granted the privilege of tending to out most seriously mentally ill and disabled citizen-peers, the issue takes an a heightened significance.

For only a beast(s) of bloodthirsty character would be willing to abuse any of the patients in  a hospital setting such as ASH. The worst of the worst, in all senses.

IN CLOSING: As I said already, some things never change, and only through rigorous oversight and accountability can we, the public, reasonably assure that  our most fundamental expectations are met whenever it comes to trusting state agencies and employees to care for our most vulnerable populations. This applies in terms of at-risk children, the elderly and infirm, and without a doubt, anybody affected by serious mental illness and disability. I will also say again that there are more than a few very goodhearted persons working at ASH (and you know who you are- Jewels in a Desert), but they are the minority. In this context, the most senior ranking nursing and psychiatric staff at ASH only attained such seniority through willfully participating in every sense imaginable in the worst possible wrongdoing at ASH. As proven in more than one very recent media report, those staff at ASH willing to blow the whistle on issues that they know to be illegal, unreasonable, or otherwise in need of attention, are directly subjected to Cory Nelson's (and all other such administrative staff, at ASH and beyond, in the greater ADHS/BHS construct) threats specific to job security, general safety, and so on. 

IT IS THAT BAD. 

paoloreed@gmail.com