Prose. RE: Abusive Staff At The Arizona State Hospital: Heart of Aldo (January 11, 2012).

Pervaiz Akhter
Primary ASH psychiatrist
1996-2016

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

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

Do the right thing. Now.

Heart of Aldo.

Introduction, July 3, 2016.

Highly violent and utterly aberrant responses of most ASH staff to any nature of bump in the road when it comes to patient behavior is as common place at ASH as are various of forms of rattlesnakes in the Arizona desert. Even in reviewing this bit of prose, I am reminiscent as I review my own memories of being an ASH patient, be it when a Palo Verde east charge nurse named Mary Anne literally blew her top (and quite frankly scared the shit out of me) when I made a simple request for my evening medication within 15 minutes of the end of her given shift (alcoholic?!?), or when former ASH security Roger Allen Forney (who is now in prison after second conviction [2012] for child sexual exploitation) and his so-called devout Christian pal Bebe both shifted into threats and outright lying when I once had a very mild conflict with them on the patient "mall" (a pair of perverts?!?). These sorts of incidents arose at any time on a daily basis, on the patient units, in the dining rooms, literally everywhere/anywhere on the Hospital grounds. Indeed, at one point maybe four weeks into my time at ASH, I realized that all I had to in order to document abuse of ASH patients was take a seat at one the "mall" picnic tables and wait. Literally, sit there and wait until something in the context occurred right there in front of me. Day after day, month ofter month, this is what is was like. 

It is that simple, it is that bad. 

-----------------------------  

So, this fellow Aldo... Not a bad guy, really, generally congenial, willing to present himself as one we could count on in terms of friendship; and as such, seemingly capable of having compassion, and the requisite qualities that anyone responsible for overseeing the care needs of highly vulnerable adults needs to possess. As I see it, at least.... So, this fellow Aldo... Nice guy, right, until I witnessed literal excitement in the Rat Bastard's eyes when he was effectively "disciplining" one of my patient-peers. My friend Edmond, that is, a younger man, always heavily medicated, anything but dangerous or otherwise of legitimate threat, but yes, at times, a touch out of line (Ed used to drop his pants once in a while, right there amongst us all, and I remember him chuckling whenever he did that, because it was unusual, but also damn funny, in fact. And funny/fun was a rare thing in that hell hole.) I spent a lot of time with Edmond in my 13 long months at ASH, and this is the full extent of whatever misbehavior I observed about his sociopathic nature.

Which therein offers no justification for any ASH staff's highly violent and utterly aberrant response. Bottom line. 

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

Heart of Aldo (© PJ Reed 1/11/12)

Oh, to be the aggressive male technician
       six foot plus maybe 215 lbs.
who smiles sickeningly at the audience, laughing
as he pins my friend Edmond face first to the floor,
full weight knee on neck, forearm on head.

He might have once thought about it, 
fantasized about how to acquire 
the chance to physically subdue unruly adults
in a setting where doing so is both safe,
for the most part, as well as sanctioned.

One must really get off on it, if they'd go so far
as to seek work in a rat hole like ASH
in order to get that chance.

Is this, too, an illusion?
Is it a frustrated male ego sort of thing?
Insecurity? Self doubt? 
Or is it simple sadomasochism, 
a state of paraphilia, 
or stiffly suppressed libidinal energy? 

Is Aldo's libidinal energy effectively boxed in
when he is with his wife?

Do men like him reel from the conflict created
through a fusion of destructive energy and libidinal energy?
     Does he, first: Wish to have Edmond as an equal?
     Does he, second: Consider himself either superior or inferior to Edmond?
     Or is he, third: Swayed by aggression and submission in such a way
                             that he wishes for Edmond's destruction and preservation
                             simultaneously? 

Warmly, the smiling hot blooded pig with the face of Adonis 
pins his lover to a floor, 
his semen spreading like hot melting wax between his thighs,
soaking a small patch in the crotch of his designer jeans. 
His dream has come to fruition, he is truly master 
of a ball peen hammer universe,
if only for a few seconds a week, at most- 
     but it is far worth it, worth the boredom and low pay
     and the pasty white latino complexion,
     for he is a master, his slaves are the patients
     and nobody outside of his peers on the job
     need to know a thing about it. 

This may be the only place for him to survive his own need
     to inflict
     to inflict
     to inflict.

(PJ Reed © 01.11.12)

NOTE: This piece was written by me while I a was still an ASH patient, less then 6 weeks before my summary February 21, 2012, discharge from ASH; which occurred as did  every other element of administrative acton that I observed in my 13 long months as an ASH patient: IN GRAPHIC DEFIANCE OF HOSPITAL PROTOCOL AND STATE AND FEDRAL DEFINED LAW.   

It was that bad. 

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

Update 2016: So, this fellow Aldo.... Relevant if not at least interesting to note that Aldo was, in this period of time, also training to be a boxer or cage fighter or some such shit ("... to survive his own need to inflict...."?); he used to talk about it with me, this desire to become a legitimate fighter, and I specifically recall telling him "You'll have to lose the baby fat first....", this as a mere joke. Then, later, once I came to know the man better... Yes, excitement, and in fact laughter expressed to the gathering patients who witnessed this particular spectacle. Spurning on, in effect, the potentially aggressive nature of those patients affected by whatever psychotic tendencies they suffer as persons diagnosed with serious mental illness. This is how some proportion of the ASH technician staff are, effectively sado-masocistic in their relationship with arguably problematic patients; and not to mention an equal proportion of ASH security (again I will draw our attention to  Roger Allen Forney, today a twice convicted sexual-child predator, hired to work at ASH, 2010, in graphic defiance of his criminal record); and even in far too many cases, senior nursing staff, who willfully exercise terrifying psychological abuse, especially the scaly war horses who have practiced there "expertise" since the dark days of yesteryear, for some reason even then not willing or able to do the right thing and challenge the presence of abjectly substandard care practices. 

Not that things have changed much, this in the sense that no matter how much "progress" we may have seen over the last X amount of years, ASH and other like state mental facilities are still operating at some degree of substandard health care practices. As a matter of standard practice, such facilities will likely always operate "behind the times" in the context, on the simple basis of ongoing societal discrimination against the persons affected by serious mental illness, 100% consistent with the sordid history of such facilities across the board. Sickening stuff, indeed, and nothing I would wish anybody to have to consider, other- that is- then those persons responsible for ensuring that ASH is operating in a manner consistent specific to established medical ethics, applicable law and policy, and fundamental human decency.

Stop turning a blind eye. 

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

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

And do the right thing. Now.

paoloreed@gmail.com