Saturday, July 23, 2016

II) ATTENTION MARK BRNOVICH, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL.

As to the undeniable fact that criminal discrimination against persons affected by disability underlies the substandard care practices and conditions in Arizona's sole long term public mental health facility

INTRODUCTION

Disability rights are civil rights. This is clarified by the dictate of the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). Each and every client-consumer (patient) at The Arizona State Hospital (ASH) is disabled as per state and federal law, and therein deserving of the full protections of the ADA's extensive provisions.

The  Arizona Office of Attorney General (OAG) bears direct responsibility to investigate and commence a process of meaningful accountability with respect for any known violations of civil rights occurring within the construct of the Arizona's public health care system, and this most definitely applies to the overall function of ASH. The ongoing substandard care practices and conditions at ASH- which have been openly exposed in this blog and national level news reports aired by ABC Ch. 15- very much qualify as said violations of ADA, and even the US Constitution, most significantly with regard for the civil rights of the ASH patient community. Failure of OAG to take action in defense of the ASH patient community's civil rights qualifies as only one more example of state sanctioned discrimination against the ASH patients across the board, and as such, requires federal oversight by the Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights.  

Assistant Attorney General, Joel Rudd who works under the direct authority of Arizona's actual (elected) Attorney General, Mark Brnovich, has long served as ASH's primary in-house legal counsel. His role in providing legal counsel extends to the administrative operation of ASH, and in this sense, it is safe to assume that this man has always been at the proverbial table and therein played a role in administrative decision making at ASH across the board. I contend that this applies to each and every proven element of the administrative ineptitude and outright malfeasance known to have imposed harm to the health and wellbeing of ASH's seriously mentally ill and disabled patient community.  Even if my own allegations specific to my personal interactions with Rudd are for whatever reason deemed less then believable, this fact is indisputable.

Always at the table.

100% aware.

Absolutely complicit.

Given that Rudd- an active staff member of OAG- has in his own right  been complicit in condoning graphic violations of state and federal law, including but not limited to the provisions of the ADA, I find it deeply shocking to know that his current boss, Mark Brnovich, has yet to investigate this specific issue as it stands. This does, in essence, illustrate a far wider realm of unlawful abuses of power and related breaches of the public trust then I have to date focused on in this blog. wherein the state office most responsible for civil rights is actively involved in allowing for such violations within the Arizona's public health care system.

At a minimum, I believe that Mr. Brnovich immediately needs to meet his given obligation to ensure that OAG staff have no connection whatsoever to violations of law across the board. In a context of the scandal at ASH, by investigating and taking Joel Rudd to account with respect for the known wrongdoing at ASH. I will say again that Rudd is and has long been involved in furthering the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH, most clearly in my experience by engaging in unlawful misconduct in his own right (when he represented the interests of ASH in hearing that I formally requested in the AZ Administrative Court and overtly prioritized those interests over the civil and human rights most at issue in those cases), and most simply by ignoring deeply illicit issues that I know he has always been aware of.

Rudd's misconduct is representative of a very real need for not only his superior, but also the Arizona and American Bar Association, to take robust action in bringing about answerability as to the how and whys underlying his unethical behavior. As in, disbarred and appropriately disciplined to the full extent of the letter of law 

I will also share yet again my initial impression(s) of this man's countenance when I first interacted with him at ASH, which in time compelled me to characterize him as "The Mortician" (a phrase I have utilized as the Rat Bastard's nickname since the inception of this blog). Likewise, following the formation of the ASH Human Rights Committee in late 2012 (which only occurred after I formally demanded said formation as per the law by submitting a legal memo to former ADHS Director Will Humble in late spring, 2012), members of that board experienced a similar impression, and therein have taken to calling Rudd "The Angel of Darkness." I find this pattern slightly amusing, but also quite disturbing; that an individual entrusted with providing optimum legal services in the context of public health would repeatedly spawn such impressions when interacting with persons who encounter him at work, there in the walls and fence lines of an insane asylum.  

I have said it before.

I couldn't make this shit up if I had to. 

BELOW. FROM THE JULY 11, 2016 ARTICLE: I) ATTENTION MARK BRNOVICH. ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL.

"And indeed, as illustrated by this Rat Bastard's (Rudd) grossly depraved disregard for Miss Mott's tragic death (said "bad thing"), I am convinced that at least one member of the highly entrusted staff of OAG is continually being allowed to engage in failing to serve the interests of Arizona's seriously mentally ill and disabled client-consumers at ASH. Persons disabled as per state and federal law, who are highly vulnerable to negligence and abuse, and who- on the basis of disability- far too often have no means of speaking for themselves, which I contend allows and in fact encourages Joel Rudd to blatantly defy his given responsibilities, in direct complicity with ASH administrators and clinical staff. This occurs despite the shared responsibility of Rudd's immediate supervisor, current Arizona Attorney Mark Brnovich, to ensure that his staff fully abide and comply with their given duties, as per the public trust. Likewise, this with respect for the role that the AZ Administrative Court is obligated to fill on behalf of Arizona citizens across the board."

From Wickipedia

Title 42 of the United States Code (Americans With Disabilities Act) is the United States Code dealing with public health, social welfare, and civil rights. 

- The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public.

- The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else.

                               --------------------------

DISCUSSION

Numerous articles published to date in this blog have made clear that each and every consumer-client (patient) deserving of optimum medical services at The Arizona State Hospital is disabled as per state and federal law. Disability across the board is acknowledged as a potentially at-risk to abuse and negligence etc.  human condition, which is precisely why the provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act (Title IV USC) dictate federally mandated protections to any person(s) affected as such, be the disability be of physical or psychological concern.

With respect for the seriously mentally ill patient community at ASH, I have furthermore posited my contention that the core cause of the issues most at stake lies in the fact that state officials patently defy the merits of the ADA, at both the state and federal level of application, as a matter of standard practice. Which defies the ADA standard that prohibits "discrimination against individuals with disabilities". It should also be of note that  the given specific disability that all ASH patients are affected by- serious mental illness- is representative of persons so affected who are highly vulnerable to and at risk of negligence and abuse, as exemplified in American history and human culture in general. As stated above, this core dynamic is 100% rooted in the causation of issues that we all know (via the established record) run rampant throughout the ASH operation as a matter of standard practice.

Which further clarifies the basic fact that ASH patients are being denied "the same rights and opportunities" that all Americans are deserving of in terms of established  health care standards.

The fact is that, if the patients I am talking about were not being treated at ASH, be it instead at a private mental health care facility or other like "normal" (non-state operated) hospital, for example, they would likely not be subjected to abuse and associated negligence; likewise, were these individuals not affected by mental illness in itself, but rather by some other type of medical ailment, and being treated as such in a non-state operated medical hospital designed to provide services to physical ailments and so on, they would not be at risk of these issues in the first place.

But, very sadly indeed, this particular community of patients are in fact affected by serious mentally illness, by which they are disabled, and are being "treated" (for lack of a better word) in a state operated facility that has  a well known record of failing to provide reasonably optimum medical services;  a failure that is occurring for no reason other then on the basis of  disability in the context. I came to recognize this immediately when I sought to address the very first incident that violated my rights as an ASH patient, the stealing of my property (medications, no less) literally as soon as I entered Hospital grounds, and the unwillingness of my then primary attending physician, Dr. Laxman Patel, to do anything about it. Likewise, in the ensuing first days into weeks as an ASH patient, I immediately witnessed and experienced first hand clear occurrences of psychological and physical abuse. 

It was from day one as though I had entered the third world.

 Pakistan, the Philippines, or India.

I contend, thus,  that any/all ASH or ADHS/BHS employee directly associated with  the known wrongdoing at ASH- as well as any other state employed persons sharing that status, including staff of OAG- is fundamentally guilty of violating the terms of ADA as they stand.

The impact of these violations on ASH patients exist under the realm of CIVIL RIGHTS, as dictated in the Arizona constitution, and at the level of federal law and policy (the ADA in this instance). The following information which anyone can view in person on the state of the Office Arizona Attorney General's (OAG) website (www.azag.gov/about),  describes in detail the responsibility(s) of this Office with direct regard to these issues as they stand, including and most significantly with respect for the civil rights of each and every ASH patient, on the basis of disability.

The Attorney General's Office represents and provides legal advice to most State agencies; enforces consumer protection and civil rights laws; and prosecutes criminals charged with complex financial crimes and certain conspiracies involving illegal drugs.

It is likewise the responsibility of the OAG to investigate and bring to accountability any state employed individuals willfully engaged in crime across the board. I contend that those persons directly associated with the substandard operation of ASH do as a matter of plain fact fall under this area of OAG overall responsibility(s), as exemplified on the same website, below:

The Attorney General’s Office has jurisdiction over Arizona's Consumer Fraud Act, white collar crime, organized crime, public corruption, environmental laws, civil rights laws, and crimes committed in more than one county. Additionally, this Office prosecutes cases normally handled by county attorneys when they have a conflict.

How might we more accurately characterize the criminal nature of the ASH operation then as being a bright line example of "white collar crime, organized crime (ASH doctors and administrators, and associated ADHS/BHS officials),  public corruption ("" " "" " "" again), acting thus as a core causation for abuses and violations of “civil rights laws.”

I have never in my 54 years of life (before and after my time at ASH) been so graphically exposed to grossly inhumane depravity then I was when I hospitalized at ASH. I have said before that my admission to ASH and my immediate experiences as an ASH patient felt like entering a third world country. (I have in fact spent time in several such nations)Knowing as I did then as a patient at ASH, and as I more greatly realize today, how greatly unlawful these issues are, I am again compelled to urge not only Mark Brnovich to take immediate action on behalf of the client-consumers (patients) at ASH, but also Arizona's lawmakers and their associates in the Arizona judiciary.

Anything less is a direct and overt breach of the public trust. It is this simply. It is this critical. It is this bad.

IN CLOSING

 
I have little if anything to add at the moment. But I can share a funny enough story about my interactions with Joel Rudd.
 
In attempting to cloud my character and credibility when he was serving as ASH's legal counsel during the third of four hearings that I filed with the AZ Administrative, Rudd pointedly asked me, "Do you ever use profanity?"

To which I replied, "Not terribly often." 

He then asked, "Do you ever use the term rat bastard?"

I could only chuckle at that one, and stated, "Yes, I admit that I do use that in my writing. But I can't really take credit for the it. I stole it from Hunter Thompson."

That said. In recent days, the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse have noted marked reader interest (spikes) in some of my older articles specific to the role that the Arizona Attorney General is required to play in addressing the issues at ASH as they still stand today. Thus compelling me to draft the these two most recent articles. All we can actually hope for is meaningful reaction and response outside of such reader interest. As such, we will maintain our vigorous attention to any related activities as they occur, and follow through accordingly.

Until next time, then.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Friday July 22, 2016 

I) ATTENTION MARK BRNOVICH, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL.

As to the The Arizona Administrative Court, and the barebones fact that it is nothing more then a puppet court which greatly fails to serve the interests of Arizona consumers.

INTRODUCTION

FROM THE ARTICLE "First Article As Written. April 02, 2012". 

"But I know better today. For one thing, the legal process circa 2012-2013 mentioned in my original April 2, 2012 article, led to absolutely nowhere in terms of bringing about due attention to the now proven/blatantly unlawful misconduct of ASH administrators; via that process, I came to understand that the entire system, including the role that the Arizona Administrative Court(s) plays in relation to the rights of consumers seeking services from ADHS/BHS, is broken." (See this blog: "First Article As Written. April 02, 2012"; published July 06,. 2016.) 

Indeed, this specific venue- the Arizona Administrative Court- is nothing more then a puppet court designed to preserve the interests of one of our nation's most corrupted public agency systems, rather then those of the Arizona citizen-consumers it is required to serve as per  law and policy.  A venue wherein the Arizona Office of the Attorney General- which formally represents the interests of the ASH operation and other like public agency/entities- has more authority then the Administrative Court itself.

---------------------------------------

      DISCUSSION

 

The given authority of the staff of the Arizona Office of the Attorney General (OAG) in this court setting would not be a problem if, in turn, such staff were not equally corrupt with respect for that office's responsibility to meet the needs and interests of the state's citizens across the board, including the client-consumers (patients, patients' families, etc.) seeking to be provided with optimum medical care at the Arizona State Hospital.

As to the aforementioned disinterest of staff in OAG when it comes to the needs and interests of the greater public in Arizona, no one instance more clarified to me how depraved the assigned legal counsel at ASH, Assistant Attorney General Joel Rudd is, in fact, then when he chose to respond- in this specific court venue- to my allegation that ASH administrators had willfully covered up the escape of ASH patient Jesus Rincon Murietta in order to avoid oversight and accountability (which directly contributed the brutal murder of Arizona citizen April Mott) by stating:

 

"You allege that because of this escape a bad thing happened?"

I raised the issue of the cover up itself because I was the one who reported it to Arizona Republic news reporter JJ Hensley, an act for which I was directly retaliated against by ASH administrators, an issue therein representing the primary issue at stake in this given case proceeding.

And indeed, as illustrated by this Rat Bastard's grossly depraved disregard for Miss Mott's tragic death (said "bad thing"), I am convinced that at least one member of the highly entrusted staff of OAG is continually being allowed to engage in failing to serve the interests of Arizona's seriously mentally ill and disabled client-consumers at ASH. Persons disabled as per state and federal law, who are highly vulnerable to negligence and abuse and who- on the basis of disability- far too often have no means of speaking for themselves, which I contend allows and in fact encourages Joel Rudd to blatantly defy his given responsibilities, in direct complicity with ASH administrators and clinical staff. This occurs despite the shared responsibility of Rudd's immediate supervisor, current Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, to ensure that his staff fully abide and comply with their given duties, as per the public trust. Likewise, this with respect for the role that the AZ Administrative Court is obligated to fill on behalf of Arizona citizens across the board.

Consequently, every time I appeared as a plaintiff in this court and seeking nothing more then equitable justice as per procedure at the level of state and federal law, and related constitutional rights (due process, for example), the actual 'judges' who sat in the five hearings that I requested in that venue were unable and unwilling to acknowledge any element of my formal statements about the misconduct of ASH's assigned legal counsel, Joel Rudd, who- as stated- is in fact an acting staff member of the Office of Arizona Attorney General. In each of the these 'case proceedings', Rudd  was permitted to engage in abject misconduct as a licensed attorney, exercising distinctly obvious abuse of the legal process in that realm of consumer interests; but when I attempted to compel the assigned 'judges' to address this attorney's misconduct, they ALL refused on the basis of the above described authority of the OAG as it stands.

As a citizen with professional legal experience  in my own right, I was nothing less then shocked- even disgusted- by what I experienced each and every time I took my concerns to this court. Because of the basic fact that ASH as an entity has severely disproportionate power over anyone who seeks relief in relation to the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH  via this court, my good faith attempts to report these issues through the state of Arizona's formal administrative legal system were literally disregarded; representing just one more version of systematic censorship that I contend has allowed ASH to function in gross defiance of law and policy, to the direct detriment of the consumer/client/patients at ASH across the board."

It is that simple, it is that critical. It is that bad.

 

IN CLOSING

The Arizona Office of Attorney General (OAG) bears direct responsibility to investigate and bring meaningful accountability with respect for the ongoing substandard care practices and conditions at The Arizona State Hospital, most significantly with regard to the civil rights of the ASH patient community. Failure to do so qualifies as only one more example of state sanctioned discrimination against the ASH patients across the board, and as such, requires federal oversight by the Department of Justice's Office of Civil Rights. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

           
Prose. September 2011. The Arizona State Hospital.


            Me.... This...  Is not about me.

            This is about you.
            But it relates to me
            subjectively,
            and to every other one of us,
            we who came to you
            because we felt we could rely
            on you.

            I... This....
            I come from a long family line
            of high achievers,
            but I realize now,  today
            as though for the first time,
            that mental illness runs among them, too.
           
            So be it.

            You... This...
            is about you,
            all of you as dirty
            as a dead hobo's underwear,
            and you know it.

            You... This...
            I will burn you down,
            I will smoke you out, all of you.

           You... This... It is so large, it is...

            You wound up with
            the wrong patient,
            and you picked the wrong century
            to write shit on the wall,
            and you are not going to get away with it.

           (September 2011)
               ---------------------------------

Following my February 21, 2012, discharge from The Arizona State Hospital, I found this piece drafted in essay form in one of the first journals that I began in order to document my experiences as an ASH patient (the piece today has been slightly amended). As such, my notes at that time, 2011-12, stand as an example of the emotions and associated intellectual responses I dealt with in relation to the presence of grossly substandard conditions at Arizona's sole long term public mental health facility, and the associated harms impacting the patients there. I had not intended by any means for my note-taking to be dominantly focused upon staff misbehavior (and related patient abuse/suffering), this is a plain fact; I was only continuing on with the same journaling I have been doing for the virtual entirety of my life, which I also knew could serve as a form of self administered therapy.

But as it turned out, my inability to ignore the overwhelming presence of patient abuse and the role of ASH administrators in condoning such a critical issue(s) transformed my attempt to benefit from this therapeutic effort into what some of my associates today characterize as embedded journalism. First person, fact based accounting and documentation of issues that would otherwise remain unknown to the greater public. I have mentioned before, that as my head cleared and a reemergence of interest in my surroundings arose, I fell back on my professional, academic, and personal strengths in order to do whatever I could in order to serve the interests of the ASH patient community.

Given that I had little resources in this context outside of writing, and other such textural record keeping (including retaining all copies of formal paperwork- e.g. patient grievance documents and other like correspondence with Hospital and state officials that I compiled while hospitalized at ASH), I thus dedicated myself to rigorous note-taking on a virtual 24/7 basis for the entirety of my thirteen long months at ASH, circa January, 2011- February, 2012.  And I will add the fact that doing so was anything but therapeutic (as follows below). I therein put my interests somewhat to the wayside in order to do the right thing.

Because no one else would. And someone had to.

Nobody encouraged me to do this, in other words. I had to initiate the effort to the best of my ability, on my own, and without giving credence to the efforts of ASH clinicians to turn my eyes away from such issues, be it on the basis of me allegedly being out of line, grandiose, and/or antagonistic in my behavior, or not.
 

Indeed, my first primary attending psychiatrist, Dr. Laxman Patel, who bore the direct responsibility to meaningfully respond to my reports (to him) of staff misconduct, willfully attempted to thwart my awareness of these matters by telling me early on: "Focus on your own treatment."

 
But I was unable to accept that. I hardly even tried, because recognizing the reality as I did, I knew that I couldn't. It was mildly confusing at first. I did in fact question for one hot minute my motivation and associated objective(s). But the presence of disturbingly unlawful staff misconduct at ASH was overwhelming, and before long, I realized the very real need as it stood.

For someone to do the right thing. Because no one else would.

And somebody had to.

So when that didn't work, this Rat Bastard  Patel tried to discharge me, on the basis of ASH not being "the right hospital for you." Suggesting, in the first place, that as an ASH patient I had no obligation or right to so much as speak of these issues, much less turn to him as a source of remedial action; and in the second place, that if I was unwilling to ignore these issues, he would do whatever he had to deny me my deserved services (as a client-consumer) in order to maintain the status quo at ASH, by having me removed from the hospital itself. He did this with no regard for my given care needs, and the fact that I was in those earliest months at ASH still mired in major depression and suicidal ideation. This so called "doctor" would have rather seen me exit ASH and kill myself, in essence, rather then do his job.  

It was that simple. It was that bad. And my experiences in this sense as an ASH patient are anything but unique.  

As such, the presence of substandard conditions and care practices at ASH literally inverted my approach to writing itself and my related intent, effectively denying me the chance to benefit from even my own self-directed "healing" in this context. 

Going through that then, while I was seeking to heal, versus be further disturbed with respect for my struggles with major depressive disorder, was nothing short of hell at times. And no single element of the challenge was more debilitating then the willful attempts of ASH doctors and administrators to deter me; they did this via systematic forms of retaliation and fearful coercion, leading me on more then one occasion to seriously consider committing suicide while there at ASH in a manner that could shock the minds and feelings of my so-called caregivers at ASH. An act that I then felt would relieve me from having to be further sickened by the radically incompetent psychiatrists I had to deal with at ASH, and their lower ranking collaborators in technician and nursing staff, while also- in theory- abruptly proving to them how traumatic their misconduct is, in fact.

For the practices of a publically funded mental health care facility to exasperate the suffering of its client-consumers is fundamentally unacceptable. I strongly feel this way, at least with reference to anyone of reasonable conscience.

And while I am typically not one for grudges, my work to date has been well grounded in my core sense of civic duty and associated responsibility as a member of the human family. I feel no need to make this clear, outside of clarifying the fact that it took my willingness to face the threat posed by ASH doctors, technicians, nurses, and even administrators, once I began openly voicing my dissent as an ASH patient. 

In this specific sense, I suggest that  it will take similarly dauntless-and arguably foolhardy- courage for the ones running ASH, or other like officials directly associated with the operation of ASH, to clean up the environment in the facility once and for all.

I herein again call upon:

Dr. Cara Christ, Director, Arizona Department of Health Services.

Dr. Aaron Bowen, Chief Executive Officer, Arizona State Hospital.

                              
Do the right thing. Now.

paoloreed@gmail.com

First Article As Written. April 02, 2012, Flagstaff, AZ.




Pervaiz Akhter. Punjab, Pakistan.
Primary attending ASH psychiatrist.
1996-2015

PJ Reed. Flagstaff, AZ.
April, 2012.

The Arizona State
Hospital and
Patient Abuse.

(As written. Typos included.)






Hello. My name is PJ Reed. April 2, 2012.

paoloreed@gmail.com
  

I have little to fall upon in trying to introduce this blog beyond my immediate past history. But I will state here and now, that this is about the radically dismal state of affairs at the Arizona State Hospital, where doctors, nurses and technicians alike act in unison on a daily basis in abusing the fundamental human rights of patients in a manner and to a degree that is undeniably beyond acceptability in this day in age; and Hospital administrators, as well as Arizona Department of Health Services representatives go out of their way to both distort the truth about this matter as well as effectively condone the misconduct via their egregious unwillingness to do anything about it. I very recently discharged from the Arizona State Hospital (ASH), and I attest to these things. My accounting of my experiences while at ASH is drawn from pure and straight forward, simple fact(s), and I am willing to publicize the very most private aspects of my life story as it stands today simply because the patient abuse at ASH has to stop. ASH administrative officers and clinical staff are currently working in clear complicity with state officials in order to allow ASH to operate at a level of sub-standard mental health care, and they are getting away with it. Somebody has to do something about it, bottom line, and this single reality is what compels me today to introduce this blog to the publics' eye.    

                       My story in relation to ASH began as follows:

Tuscon Mountains, Pima County, AZ

In May, 2010, I awoke at approximately 9:30 a.m. from my fourth attempt to commit suicide on a hillside overlooking the west side of Tucson, Arizona. The early summer sun already had the temperature somewhere in the high 90s. I was dehydrated and extremely tired after having ingested a full bottle of Ibuprofen and three full 40 oz. bottles of cheap, high octane beer. I had about $13 in my pocket; and I had to make a choice of whether or not to walk back down into the city and re-up on my supplies in order to give it one last go (knowing for the first time that I should definitely should have purchased and used Tylenol PM, rather than trying to get a good deal by purchasing Ibuprofen, which had been on sale the previous day...Idiot!), or to go about looking into other options given my very limited circumstances. I had left all of my belongings behind (but for one large backpack of clothing that was stolen from me approximately 36 hours before by two guys at a bus stop), and beyond the dust in my nostrils and hair, I had only the clothing on my back, in essence. 

As I walked out of the cactus and brush filled desert hills, I was sick with dehydration and general weariness caused by the effect(s) of overdose; and it occurred to me that were I to re-up on my basic supplies, with the idea of another attempt in mind, I would have to turn right around and hoof it back up into the mountains, with the attendant realization to I simply wasn't up to it. So I pondered that option, and as I did, my thoughts were drawn to a conversation I had with a man in a bar, perhaps 6 weeks prior. It was, at the time, my favorite bar, and this man- a stranger- was at least 15 years older than I, an obvious long time alcoholic who had likely been well 'round the mountain and back in his own personal life. Over our beers, I informed the man that I was contemplating suicide, a statement I was willing to make because I sensed that he and I shared the same open-mindedness in terms of matters relating to life and death, a maturity of sorts that comes with the disease known as chronic alcoholism. And as expected, my drinking partner that day barely flinched when I told him this; after a moment of basic silence, he did ask, however, if I had ever sought professional help, in any capacity. 

And while I had done that, in a fashion, on at least 3 occasions in my recent history, I realized while pondering my options in early May, 2012, that I had never sought such help in anything resembling sincere desire; instead, I had taken myself to hospital ERs while drunkenly awash in suicidal ideation, and therein admitted to staff that I was thinking these things; but each time, as soon as I sobered up, I decided I did need to be there. At which point I would leave, and before long fall back into my willful desire to die. Walking down from the hills that day, it occurred to me that perhaps I should heed that good man's most basic feedback, and at least try to do so in reasonably good fashion. Once I entered that process in good faith on my own part, and maintained my openness to the best of my ability with my Tucson area caregivers, I came to learn that I was needful and deserving of far more than I had ever comprehended, and made the decision to stick it out; knowing that I could, at virtually anytime, request to be discharged, and go back to my original intentions. And that was the beginning of 21 full months of hospitalization.

The reasonable treatment and related moral support offered me in those Tucson area mental heath facilities afforded me the associated willingness to trust my doctors, and as the possibility of referral and admission to the Arizona State Hospital became a reality, I made the very difficult decision to cooperate to the best of my ability. But I had no idea of what I was getting into.     

"SUBSTANDARD MEDICAL-MENTAL HEALTH CARE AS A MATTER OF STANDARD PRACTICE.
 AND THEY ARE GETTING AWAY WITH IT!"
(Verbatim journal note, March 18, 2011.)

For I learned within a very short time following my admission to ASH, that patients there are routinely abused as a matter of standard practice, and it wasn't long before the abuse fell directly upon me. My story is one which I hope will expose the atrocious wrongdoing that occurs at ASH in a meaningful way, and I intend to share all aspects of my own experiences, including details relating to an ongoing legal process of investigation brought about by my efforts while still at ASH to establish meaningful oversight and accountability specific not only to abuse that I suffered, but also in terms of the Hospital's willingness to carry on its daily operations in direct defiance of common codes of decency and medical ethics.  ch, ASH is a public (health care) entity under federal and state law, and is subject to the principles and provisions of The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), The Hospital Information Portability and Protection Act (HIPPA), along with numerous other well established codes of standard and practice. I mention these specific legal standards because as a patient, client/consumer, and human being, I fully expected nothing more or less than reasonable medical care when I came to accept the idea that ASH was the place for me to be as a person affected by a serious mental illness, needing as I did then, formal in-patient care and treatment consistent with what mental health care facilities are obligated to offer as per well established codes of practice and administrative operation.

A bit more history.

As stated already, immediately after that May, 2010 suicide attempt, I spent close to 8 months of treatment at several well operated short term facilities in Tucson; at which time I was then referred to Arizona's sole long term public mental hospital, The Arizona State Hospital. This reference was negotiated via a cooperative civil commitment that I agreed to after long and thoughtful conferencing on the matter with the good doctors at the University of Arizona Medical Center South Campus (formerly Kino-UPH Hospital). It need be said that those first eight months of treatment in Tucson area facilities was not always pleasant, nor free of shortfalls specific to issues that relate to my feelings about The Arizona State Hospital. But this is to be expected, in certain terms, for no residential mental health facility is entirely free of conflict, including in terms of staff behavior and possible misconduct. But I also attest to the fact that at ASH, I encountered conditions so dismally below par in terms of my well learned understand of established health care standards, that there is no comparison, in fact. Going from the the Tucson area hospitals to Arizona's sole long term public mental hospital (ASH, in Phoenix) was very akin leaving the contemporary society that I had lived in for the prior 49 years of my life, and entering a realm inhabited by authorities who exhibit little to no understanding of health care ethics, state/federal law and policy, or commonly recognized civility. 

At the time of my admission to ASH, I was experiencing chronic and ongoing suicidal ideation(s) in direct association with my primary diagnosis of major depression, and as stated above, it was only through a process of mutual trust and good faith planning that any member of my Tucson treatment planning team (including myself) came to consider sending me to ASH with my mental health care needs in mind. I approached the whole concept with an understandable air of trepidation and concern over the conditions at ASH, simply because it is a full blown insane asylum, and I had never personally undergone any sort of planned long term treatment in such a setting (my first meeting of any kind with a psychiatrist occurred in spring, 2010). None of us imagined the sorts of things that I would come to experience at ASH, and I owe my care givers in Tucson nothing short of absolute appreciation, because it is the covert malfeasance of ASH clinicians and administrators that are of issue in this story, and not the well founded expectations of my Tucson doctors, who reasonably presumed that ASH was up to the task of functioning in a manner consistent with the functions of any modern hospital.   

Indeed, none of us could have imagined that over a period 13 months I would come to witness and experience systematic and overtly sanctioned abuse that would, in time, lead me to become an inadvertently dedicated advocate for the rights and wellbeing of all persons associated with ASH, from the patients and their families, as well to the many good people who do, in fact, work at ASH. As stated already, patient abuse at the Arizona State hospital has to stop, and something has to be done to bring this about. This is the purpose of my blog, and I invite anybody of like mind to come aboard, for I can certainly use the support. None of the accounts that I intend to report in this blog are of bad faith intent, and all/any data that I include is factual and truthful to the best of my knowledge.

(April 02, 2012)

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2016 UPDATE: The above is as a matter of fact the first article produced and published by me since I was discharged from ASH, as written, including typos. Hopefully, the product itself is at least a bit more polished today, thanks in no small part to assistance from a small handful of equally dedicated individuals. But over coffee recently, as the ongoing production of my manuscript (book) advances, me and my pals decided it might be a prime time to share this first article yet again. Why?

SUBSTANDARD MEDICAL-MENTAL HEALTH CARE AS A MATTER OF STANDARD PRACTICE.

AND THEY ARE STILL GETTING AWAY WITH IT.

Since the April 02, 2012, inception of this blog, PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse, we the staff have published 456 online articles specific to the grossly substandard care practices and conditions at Arizona'a sole long term public mental health facility. Since that date, over 100,000 dedicated reader visits have occurred (defined as lasting more then 12 minutes per visit, enough time to read every new article, in essence), the bulk of which only arose after the blog's first 18 months of life, and a number which is still growing at a rate of approximately five hundred per month. But, as our most recent articles illustrate, published in cooperation with the investigative staff of the Phoenix area's ABC news affiliate, ABC Ch15 (KNVX), the current administrators of the ASH operation are yet to bring about meaningful reform, most markedly with respect for the fact that the Hospital is still employing any number of medical and other like staff who are 100% complicit in allowing the presence of patient abuse at ASH to occur. Likewise, I am fully aware that in the AHDS/BHS construct, with specific regard for the ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals, there are still no less then five highly entrusted officials directly involved in failing to meet their given responsibilities circa 2010-2015 working for that office.  This, despite the associated fact that in spring, 2015, at least seven individuals directly associated with the operation of ASH were summarily fired- including two former ASH CEO's, and one staff attorney from ADHS- an event that only occurred following the hasty resignation of the then Director of ADHS, Will Humble, and the appointment by AZ Governor Doug Ducey of the current ADHS Director, Dr. Cara Christ. 

I must admit in hindsight, that for a moment there, I was willing believe that these developments stood as reasonable evidence to the effect that the issues most at stake at ASH were going to be meaningfully addressed, and that the rampant presence of patient abuse at ASH would be eliminated once and for all. Effectively the same mistake I made when I approached my first ASH physician, Dr. Laxman Patel, in the hope that he would meet his obligation(s) to ensure that such issues would not be permitted or otherwise condoned.

But I know better today. For one thing, the legal process circa 2012-2013 mentioned in my original April 2, 2012, article (above), led to absolutely nowhere in terms of bringing about due attention to the now proven/blatantly unlawful misconduct of ASH administrators; via that process, I came to understand that the entire system, including the role that the Arizona Administrative Court(s) plays in relation to the rights of consumers seeking services from ADHS/BHS, is broken. Indeed, this specific venue is nothing more then a puppet court, wherein the Arizona office of the Attorney General ("AG")- which formally represents the interests of the ASH operation and other like public agencies- has more authority then the Administrative Court itself. Ergo, every time I appeared as a plaintiff seeking nothing more then equitable justice as per procedure at the level of state and federal law, and related constitutional rights (due process, for example), the actual "judges" who sat in the five hearings that I requested in that venue were unable and unwilling to acknowledge any element of my formal statements about the misconduct of ASH's assigned legal counsel, Joel Rudd, who is in fact an acting staff member of the Office of Arizona Attorney General. In each of the these "case proceedings", Rudd  was permitted to engage in abject misconduct as a licensed attorney, exercising distinctly obvious abuse of the legal process in that realm of consumer interests, but when I attempted to compel the assigned "judges" to address this attorney's misconduct, they ALL refused on the basis of the above described authority of the AG. As a former legal professional in my own right, I was nothing less then shocked- even disgusted- by what I experienced each and every time I took my concerns to this court. Because of the basic fact that ASH as an entity has severely disproportionate power over anyone who seeks relief via this court, my good faith attempts to report the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH through the state of Arizona's formal administrative legal system were literally disregarded; representing just one more version of systematic censorship that I contend has allowed ASH to function in gross defiance of law and policy, to the direct detriment of the consumer/client/patients at ASH across the board.    


Likewise, I now (2016) recognize the fact that the above described firings of seven individuals working for ADHS/BHS amounts to little more then scapegoating. I have learned this and other things the hard way, through thirteen long months of torment as an ASH patient and over five years of producing data that I compiled while there in this blog, that the primary reason for the ongoing substandard care practices and conditions at ASH has everything to do with the hyper-dysfunctional bureaucracy in the ADHS/BHS construct. Due to a trickle-down effect of this dysfunction, which  lands squarely on the heads of the ASH patient community across the board, some proportion of ASH staff- including still employed primary care ASH physicians who I attest to having willfully turned a blind eye to the presence of patient abuse when I was there- are even today engaging in abject dereliction of duty as "practicing" doctors at ASH. They, all of them, need to go. 

These issues extend from top to bottom with respect to ASH staff in general, and the described role that ADHS/BHS plays in furthering the situation; and they are are occurring with the full support of at least one employee of the Arizona Office the Attorney General, Joel Rudd, who has been ASH's primary legal counsel for over two full decades. 

The barebones fact remains. I have done far more then my share of work in granting persons such as Dr. Cara Christ  an easy avenue by which to begin a legitimate process of reform when it comes to cleaning ASH up. I have, in fact said it before: Until someone in the highest offices of the ADHS/BHS construct has the proverbial balls to thoroughly do the right thing, in cooperation with the Attorney General himself (who needs to prosecute Joel Rudd as a first thing), there is little hope of ensuring that the stake holding client-consumer/patients at ASH are being provided with a requisite level of medical care and related services.

But that has not happened. Neither the new blood in ADHS or at the helm of the Hospital itself (current ASH CEO Dr. Aaron Bloom in particular) have taken action with respect for the fact ASH that physicians  (including and especially longtime ASH Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Dingle) were centrally involved in each and every scandal now known to have occurred, this in spite of the plain fact that these doctors are required as per their licensure- and the Hippocratic Oath- to ensure that their given patients are not denied optimum care and treatment across the board. Basic decency aside, these licensed practitioners also bear the legal obligation to respond to any concerns about abuse and other like issues that their given ASH patients bring to them, representing in no uncertain terms the first step in the given food chain when it comes to expressing such concerns, this as per Hospital and ADHS protocol (The ASH patient handbook circa 2011 states "Patients are advised to take any concerns about their provided care at ASH to their treatment team, beginning with their assigned primary psychiatrist.").  

Based on these facts, law and policy demands that each and every ASH physician working at ASH over the last 5-6 years be held accountable for the simple fact that they too refused to do their part in fulfilling their responsibilities, which 100% represents the ongoing substandard care practices at ASH. Anything less is an abject dereliction of duty under the terms of the public trust, for if the ASH doctors are openly willing to ignore staff misconduct and associated patient abuse, what is to deter lower ranking ASH from engaging in such misbehavior?  

The record also proves that longtime ASH legal counsel Joel Rudd (who is in fact an employee of the Arizona Office of the Attorney General) has  directly participated in furthering the unlawful misconduct of ASH administrators for over twenty full years.  This particular Rat Bastard has always been at the table when administrative decisions at ASH have been determined, including but far from limited to the criminal coverup of the 2011 Jesus Murietta escape and the consequent death of an Arizona citizen who had no relationship to the Hospital beyond the coverup itself. April Mott's tragic death only occurred due to the role that each and every one of these people played in that coverup. But even the Attorney General himself (Mark Brnovich) has failed to address the fact that one of his staff is deeply involved in now proven unlawfulness of the ASH operation across the board.

It is that simple. It is that bad. I see this, I attest to it, and I refuse to relent.  
  

CONCLUSION: It will require the authority of federal agencies such as the Department of Justice (who oversee the Americans With Disabilities Act- all ASH patients are disabled under federal law) and the Department of Health and Human Services, if we are ever going to see an eradication of the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH  once and for all. Likewise, as a matter of simple deterrence on behalf of the ASH patients, only direct oversight and full accountability applied to each and every individual even remotely involved in the now proven history in this matter will suffice, as per the strict letter of state and federal law.

Until next time, then. 

paoloreed@gmail.com