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The new year 2016 is upon us. Bottom line: At The Arizona State Hospital, I attest to the basic fact that senior ranking staff- from administrators to executive level psychiatrists and associated nursing staff- engage in potently lethal discrimination against the ASH patient community (all of whom are disabled by serious mental illness), a clear pattern of unethical conduct underlying the hows and whys of now established evidence to the effect that this public facility has been operating in graphic defiance of law, policy, and fundamental human conscientious. Discrimination of this form, and directly related stigmatization against persons affected by mental illness, has long been the root of horrifically inhumane experiences of such persons seeking help in our nation's public mental health facilities. But I ask "Why?" when it comes to ASH, in one the most wealthy states in America today. Arizona, that is. Food for thought, and then some.
That said, the following article- originally published about one month after my late February, 2012, discharge from ASH- illustrates the bare bones fact that not only Hospital administrators, but higher ranking officials in the Arizona Department of Health as well, willfully ignored documented evidence to the effect that ASH patients were being subjected to malicious forms of systemic negligence, which 100% contributed (and still contributes today) to the presence of highly unlawful abuse of patients. In conducting themselves as such, these entrusted members of Arizona's public health care system furthered the long standing existence of grossly unlawful discrimination against persons affected by mental illness. Indeed, what we are looking at here falls nothing short of a bureaucratic culture of corruption, the worst impacts of which ultimately lands squarely on the shoulders of those AZ citizen-consumers most deserving of reasonably optimum services in the the context of public health care. ASH patients, that is, each of whom is highly at risk of such abuse, this on the basis of their given disability.
That said, the following article- originally published about one month after my late February, 2012, discharge from ASH- illustrates the bare bones fact that not only Hospital administrators, but higher ranking officials in the Arizona Department of Health as well, willfully ignored documented evidence to the effect that ASH patients were being subjected to malicious forms of systemic negligence, which 100% contributed (and still contributes today) to the presence of highly unlawful abuse of patients. In conducting themselves as such, these entrusted members of Arizona's public health care system furthered the long standing existence of grossly unlawful discrimination against persons affected by mental illness. Indeed, what we are looking at here falls nothing short of a bureaucratic culture of corruption, the worst impacts of which ultimately lands squarely on the shoulders of those AZ citizen-consumers most deserving of reasonably optimum services in the the context of public health care. ASH patients, that is, each of whom is highly at risk of such abuse, this on the basis of their given disability.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Bright Line Violations Of The Americans With Disabilities Act: Wherein, Arizona State Hospital Chief Executive Officer/Supervisor Corey Nelson Engages In Graphically Unconstitutional Retaliation And Forcible Coercion and Intimidation, Putting Patients At Grave Risk Of Personal Harm And Fear For Their Lives In Order to Suppress Good Faith Self Advocacy.
In my April 9, 2012, article (see this blog: 04/09/12 "Fact #3) I described details relating to my having been unlawfully transferred from a markedly peaceful patient unit at the Arizona State Hospital (ASH) to a very violent one immediately following the submission of a formal grievance report (dated September 2, 2011, but relating to events that occurred in late May, 2011) that was produced on my behalf by a former representative of the Arizona Department of Health Services Office of Human Rights advocate named John Gallagher. As such, it is clear to me that the unit transfer was imposed on me as matter of criminal retaliation that was imparted on me by my then attending physician, Dr. Pervaiz Akkter, in complicity with former ASH Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, Dr. Lynn Lydon, as well as ASH' legal representative, Mr. Joel Rudd (who is an assistant with the Office of the Arizona Attorney General), solely because I had exercised my fundamental right to voice dissent and good faith concern over abuse of authority and related administrative misconduct at ASH.
THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)
-TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
-CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
Section 12203 Prohibition Against Retaliation and Coercion
a) Retaliation. No person shall discriminate against any individual because such individual has opposed any act or practice made unlawful by this chapter or because such individual made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under this chapter.
b) Interference, coercion, or intimidation. It shall be unlawful to coerce, intimidate, threaten, or interfere with any individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, or on account of his or her having exercised or enjoyed, or on account of his or her having aided or encouraged any other individual in the exercise or enjoyment of, any right granted or protected by this chapter.
c) Remedies and procedures. The remedies and procedures available under sections 12117, 12133, 12188 of this title shall be available to aggrieved persons for violations of subsections (a) and (b) of this section, with respect to subchapter I, subchapter II and subchapter III of this chapter, respectively.
The original September 02, 2011, grievance report (for which I was retaliated against) has to date survived a number of administratively corrupt attempts by ASH and The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) Office of Grievances and Appeals (OGA) to effectively squash it without merit, and the matter is still today in the process of legal oversight. I am still, close to one year after the original May, 2011, events that were presented in the grievance report submitted on my behalf by human rights advocate, John Gallagher, on September 04, 2011, awaiting word as to the scheduling date for an affirmed, pending administrative hearing in a state court specific to this matter. The delay of due process in this matter is in graphic violation of constitutional law that all Americans are deserved of being protected by, but nobody at the state seems to care. Thus, it is matter of time before federal intervention will be required as matter of removing the criminal elements of ASH administrators and clinicians, as well as related departmental corruption and administrative negligence.
As to the retaliative transfer, one business day after the Sept. 2011 grievance report arrived in the administrative offices at ASH, I was advised in a September 06, 2012, letter drafted and signed by ASH Supervisor Cory "crazycorycorner.weebly.com" Nelson and former ASH Chief Medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, that I was being transferred from the notably peaceful Palo Verde East unit to the very violent unit, Desert Sage East. I have attached this letter and a handful of other related documents further below; therein, a sequence of administrative actions designed to punish me for having participated in a lawful, good faith report of gross administrative abuse of authority that discriminated against me and abridged a number of my constitutional rights to dignity, freedom from undue restriction and restraint, fair treatment, and several other very serious liberties and protections afforded me and all patients at ASH under the provisions of the congressionally created ADA statute, and the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
However, and in addition to the technical features of ASH unlawful administrative actions laid out later in this article, I am including the following Arizona Republic newspaper article about a man named Joe Saucedo Gallegos, who bludgeoned two little boys to death with a baseball bat in 2008, because Mr. Gallegos and his story as it stands today has direct bearing on the validity of my concerns. It is my not my desire to worsen Mr. Gallegos personal life at this date, for he is also a victim of the mental health system, in my humble opinion, this despite my feelings about the heinousness of the crime that he was recently prosecuted for; but the fac tof the matter is, Mr. Gallegos presence at ASH directly relates to my allegations concerning the retaliation that I was subjected to....
.... For, as though to add insult to injury, it was not until I learned about this man's history and violent nature in the above newspaper article (a good 5-6 weeks after I discharged form ASH in late February, 2012) that I realized the graphic extent to which ASH administrative and clinical staff had gone in order to criminally attempt to suppress my voice as a patient and human being. But I came into direct contact with Joe Saucedo Gallegos on a daily basis as soon as I was subjected to the retaliative unit transfer that I describe above, because I became his new bathroom-mate (for lack of a better term), making us virtual roommates. Initially unbeknownest to me, too, Mr Gallegos was aware of my efforts to address ASH' staff involvement with illicit tobacco and other substances sales and use at ASH, and he harbored a very real resentment towards me for this reason, because he was a very active dealer, and loan shark, of sorts. Due to these circumstances, I was subjected to ongoing threats and intimidation by this man (and other patients on Desert Sage East) for the entirety of my final six months at ASH. Staff was fully aware of these facts, and the ongoing threats of violence directed at me by this man were documented on numerous occasions after I reported it, but I was never aware of how radically dangerous my situation was.
Above is the formal transfer order issued that I received from ASH Supervisor Cory Nelson and former ASH Chief medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, on September 06, 2011, one business after ASH had received submission of the September 02, 1011, grievance document prepared and submitted by a very competent, state employed human rights advocate.
Advising me, as such, that I was to be transferred from the known to be peaceful Palo Verde East unit to the notoriously violent Desert Sage East unit. The letter is absolutely barren of the required information when it comes to unit transfers, and I find it insulting, at best, to have to believe that these people believe they can pull this sort of egregious misconduct on disabled persons such as myself; but as I have also made clear, these sorts of practices are par for the course at ASH, and they impose these sorts of criminal actions on all the patients at ASH, as a matter of standard practice.
ASH such, public entities and facilities such as the Arizona State Hospital and its staff, and the staff of the affiliated Department of Health Services, as well as the representatives of the state attorney generals office such asJoel Rudd,(who I contend for good reason has more familiarity with directly applicable law in this context than any other involved party- he's a freaking lawyer who has represented ASH since the early 1990s, for crying out loud!), are all subject to the scrutiny of federal oversight flowing from the provisions of the ADA and other like law and policy standards, as shown below:
THE AMERICANS WITH DISABILITIES ACT OF 1990 (INC. 2008 AMENDMENTS)
-TITLE 42- THE PUBLIC HEALTH AND WELFARE
-CHAPTER 126) EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES
SUBCHAPTER II- PUBLIC SERVICES
Part A- Prohibition Against Discrimination and Other Generally Applicable Provisions
Section 12131. Definitions
As used in this subchapter:
1) Public entity. The term "public entity" means
(A) any state or local government;
(B) any department, agency, special purpose district, or other instrumentality of a State or States or local government.
2) Qualified individual with a disability. The term "qualified individual with a disability" means an individual who, with or without reasonable modifications to rules, policies, or practices, the removal of architectural, communication, or transportation barriers, or the provision of auxiliary aids and services, meets the essential eligibility requirements for the receipt of services or the participation in programs or activities provided by a public entity.
Section 12132. Discrimination
Subject to the provisions of this subchapter, no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.
I immediately recognized that required procedures had been disregarded to an extreme that definitely extended to the realm of federal protections and so on, but as always, I began a process of fundamentally good faith dissent that relied upon the willingness of the patient advocate at ASH, Sonya Serda, to
do her part in terms of at least addressing the fact that hospital and ADHS procedure hadn't been followed, as expressed in a September 12, 2011, grievance report that I submitted to Ms. Serda, shown below:
CORY "CRAZYCORYCORNER" NELSON'S SEPTEMBER 30, 2011, LETTER TO ME
I also drafted a letter to Cory Nelson himself concerning this matter, and about two full weeks later, I received his personal interpretation of his given authority, as shown here. In his letter to me, Mr. Nelson patently denies any obligation to the most centrally involved patients (in this case, me), justifying his authority in this matter as supercedent to every applicable regulation and requirement of unit transfers. Despite my pointing out to him that there are numerous- and very clear- provisions of Arizona Administrative Code, as well as ASH/ADHS own rules, relating to unit transfers, Mr. Nelson flatly disregarded these fundamental merits of my concerns, and instead, instead issuing the above letter wherein he expoloits the possibility that mentally ill persons have little or no access to such documents and related provisions, basically telling me that he can do whatever he wants. Mr. Nelson also expressed himself as being rather out of touch with the concept of voluntarily cooperative patients such as myself, when he points out my right to "request discharge" if I am not satisfied with "the treatement" that I was receiving. The Arizona state Hospital is not a Motel Six, and my very clear dissatisfactions with my treatment at ASH were always founded upon equally clear reports of staff misconduct and related unlawfulness. Mr. Nelson's position on these matters, as stated in this letter, reeks of administrative disregard for patient, and is very akin to the discriminative tendeny of ASH physicians in terms of how they sp often abuse their respective authority, doing whatever they want to with no concern whatsoever for the wellbeing of their patients, and then chalk it off in the context of treatment needs. In both contexts, it is criminally extreme abuse of the "powers" and directly related responsibilites that people like Mr. Nelson are granted and assigned via the public trust, and in my humble opion, misconduct that absolutely pollutes and disqualifies them from the privileges that society grants such individuals in society today.
As evidenced in Nelson's langauge in the above letter, these specific matters offer an outstanding example of the severity of administrative negligence that I experienced while hospitalized at ASH, and very clearly represents the substandard conditions that the patients at the Arizona State Hospital are subjected to on a daily basis. My "treatment" at ASH was not unusual, in this sense, and it goes to show that ASH operates in direct defiance of the ADA and other highly valued mandates of common deciency and protocol on a daily basis.
At this time, I have prevailed in fighting ASH' and ADHS' attempts to cover up the highly egregious retaliation that I was subjected to by the September 06, 2011, unit transfer from what is possibly the most peaceful unit at ASH to the arguably most violent one; and I have yet to hear, but as with the original September 06, 2011, grievance report that led to ASH Supervisor and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle's decision to punish me for my self advocacy efforts, there is a pending (yet to be scheduled) hearing that will be conducted in the Arizona Office of Administrative a hearings in downtown Phoenix in specific relation to my allegations concerning retaliation, and the high degree of risk that was posed to me for the last 6 months of my so called "treatment" at the Arizona State Hospital.
I cannot easily describe the extent of violence that I was exposed to after my transfer to Desert Sage East unit, but suffice it to say, it is a unit specifically staffed and designed to house the most problematic, and potentially violent, patients on the civil side of ASH . As such, the atmoshpere on Desert Sage East contradicts my personality characteristics and the very heart of my given diagnosis. The impacts of this action led to myriad experiences on that unit were deeply disturbing and very detrimental to my overall well being. In sum, I was assaulted by mentally disturbed patients on nine occasions during the whole of my nearly two year period of hospitalization in mental health facilities, ASH and elsewhere circa 2010-2012, and in none of those occasions did I so much as strike back in my own defense or otherwise engage in violent acts. I am a nonviolent person dedicated to civil interactions with others at all times, I have no history of violence or related criminal record, and to quote a rather well known Kinks song: "I'm not the world's most physical guy...", either. It is my express contention that ASH administrators and clinicians knew this about me (how could they not?) when they opted to subject me to the highly volatile and clearly dangerous environment of Desert Sage East. I am still bothered by very real anxiety and fear that stems directly from the months I spent on that unit, and I am uncomfortably distrustful of medical authorities now, too, in direct relation to the radically criminally malfeasant abuse of power that was subjected on me in this matter. It is a bottom line fact that any number of nonviolent mentally ill adults at ASH are subjected to retaliation and related undue exposure to harm on a day to day basis.
Hopefully, these documents will give readers an idea of the systematic manner in which ASH administrators and department of health representatives flaunt their ill conceived sense of power and authority over persons effected by serious mental illness and related disability as matter of standard practice. It is criminal and inhumane to the nth degree. Let's stop it today. (April, 2012).
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Fast forward to the present. December 31, 2015. It took over 3 full years for the evidence that I sought to make public in this blog to have any meaningful effect. Had the associated state and federal agencies most responsible to seeing that facilities such as ASH strictly abide to federal enactments such as Americans With Disabilities ACT (US Dept. of Health and Human Services and the Dept. of Justice respective offices of civil rights) met there due diligence in this context, a wide range of related tragedies would not have occurred. It is that simple. And even now, various number of directly guilty individuals are still working at ASH, this despite their known complicity in allowing for the abuse of ASH patients to occur, this in the broader context of patient care needs and personal interests, as per the letter of federal and state law.
It became clear to me early on in my thirteen total months of hospitalization in Arizona's sole long term public mental health facility (ASH) that the core causes for grossly substandard practices at ASH that have now been exposed in local and national news- and this blog- have everything to do with the simple fact that all ASH patients are disabled under state and federal law. Seriously mentally ill, and as such, highly vulnerable-at risk of discrimination, negligence, abuse, and other like factors that have long been imposed on such citizens who seek treatment in public mental hospitals across the board. And at ASH, these elements of the status of the Hospital's overall patient community were indisputably taken harmful advantage of by ASH administrators and senior level psychiatric staff (doctors and management level nurses alike).
In my case, I recognized this reality within hours- literally- of my admission to ASH, and as time passed thereafter, my deepest sense of conscientious objection was heightened to the point that I knew I could not stand back and allow for the graphic misconduct of most ASH staff- at all levels of employ- to occur. And for this, once I began exercising my right to report these conditions as per protocol, not only did state health care officials patently reject the merits of the lawfully presented evidence, I was furhter retaliated against by ASH administrators and associated senior medical staff. This pattern continued for the entirety of my time at ASH, literally until the day of my February, 2012, discharge. Abject administrative negligence in the executive office(s) of ASH, and beyond in the highest offices of ADHS/BHS. Herein I request for the ones now sitting in the highest administrative offices at ASH and beyond in ADHS/BHS to take appropriate action with the applicable federal standards by which ASH and the state of Arizona have been granted the privilege of overseeing the care needs and interests of the disabled ASH patients, patients' families, and the greater public in general. Nothing short of this will suffice in bringing ASH up to speed with contemporary health care standards, for until each and every individual directly involved in the now known corruption at ASH is brought to full accountability, the presence of egregiously misbehavior of ASH staff will continue to occur. Themes of deterrence, etc., are critically needed, and there's only one way to bring that about. Now.
