The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse.

NOTE: The following is the full text of my first article in this blog publication, produced less then six weeks after my February 21, 2012, discharge from the Arizona State Hospital. Allow it be understood, as well, that all elements of my overall allegations are just that- allegations- and drawn from first person experience.

Hello. My name is PJ Reed. 

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:

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.

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.

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IN CLOSING SEPTEMBER 19, 2018: As stated, all elements of information specifically naming individuals who I contend are at fault in relation to the corruption at Arizona State Hospital are and have always been allegations. It is imperative to note that in terms of the first three years of this publications existence, such allegations about persons who I had to deal with as an ASH patient circa 2011-12, from since fired Hospital administrators such as Cory Nelson and Donna Noriega, to representatives in the greater construct of the Arizona Department of Health Services, such as former director Will Humble, for example, were proven in due time as accurate. 

Not that the full range of due accountability that I fully believe was coming to these people actually came about, for indeed, no one of them were subject to criminal prosecution or other such oversight that I know have direct relation to such corruption. For this did not, in fact, come about.  Despite of this, however, in a context of proving that during my time at ASH numerous issues needing such oversight and accountability typically occurred on a near daily basis, often in direct proximity to wherever I might happen to have been while hospitalized there, let it be known that I've never had a need to make anything up. It is also crucially significant to realize that if I alone personally witnessed to so vast a range of unjust events and incidents during my time at ASH, consider the fact that any number of other patient-consumers at ASH most necessarily also witness(ed) and experience(ed) such issues to the same extent. I contend that this is still the case, early fall 2018, and that the current issues arising in terms of oversight at ASH- the lawsuit, for example, about ASH's refusal to share records with the federally and state empowered Arizona Center for Disability Law- prove the legitimacy of my concerns as they stand.    

What is disturbing to the nth degree, is the fact that many persons disabled by mental illness disorders lack the capability to recognize the significance of substandard care practices, and that even when they do, they may well have no idea of what to do about it. This is the nature of psychological disability, in part, and has for time immemorial allowed persons lacking in ethos and high quality character to exploit, abuse, or otherwise pose harm to the mentally ill in general. And even in this day in age, we are witnessing the presence at ASH of employed individuals known to be unethical, if not criminal in character. Be it the current quality control officer at ASH, Lisa Wynn, or the now incarcerated ASH security guard, Roger Forney (and on the list can go), ASH is still a safe haven for monstrous miscreants who willfully feed on the vulnerabilities of the ASH patient community.

Need I even say that this is unacceptable? Or is it the case that fat cat bureaucrats functioning in proximity to the operation of state mental hospitals and other like settings are too often ignorant to the struggles of the disabled, and/or oblivious in terms of recognizing why these institutions even exist? I have witnessed this, I actually have, listening in 2017  to a Montana health care official, one Zoe Barnard, downplay the significance of federal oversight at that state's mental hospital in formal (and public) sit-down with hospital staff; it was clear to me then that Barnard sought to misrepresent this reality to as a means to condone the issues at stake. Sucking such staff,- many/most of whom work with no relation to the administrative operation of such a facility- into the vortex that only exists due to corruption, rather then utilizing the situation as a means to learn, to grow. 

It is that bad.

I have never and nor do I today seek to unjustly persecute any other human being in any given context. This is simply not my character, bottom line. But at that same time, I have a known history in terms of public interest advocacy and activism, one that far predates my diagnosis of serious mental illness. It is thus apropos that I now seek opportunity to identify issues that I know to be harmful to the welfare of the ASH patient community. Likewise, in terms of cultural and societal discrimination against persons affected and disabled by mental illness cross the board, I am more then willing to stand against whatever elements of this area of prejudice I feel contributes to the issue. 

This is the least I can do, I feel, given my education, strengths and attributes, and the privileges I have been afforded as an American in this day in age.  It blows my mind- even today- how deeply corrupted the realm of public mental health care is, in graphic defiance of established and known history about just how deeply persons affected have been abused and harmed, arguably since the dawn of documented evidence to the effect. 

I also know all too well that I am very, very fortunate that my specific psychological diagnosis and the struggles that I deal with in context do not necessarily limit my ability to engage in mental health advocacy and activism, including and especially in relation to my own care needs. 

This, too, directly compels me to do what I can in order to improve the realities that mentally ill persons have to contend with. For by now, some of my closest friends are affected and disabled by serious mental illness, and this is an amazingly virtuous thing, as I see it. 

Where certain psychiatrists and other such staff who work in state hospitals bear grudges that may well flow from their basic inability to find "success" anywhere else, possibly due to cultural identity or other like nuances, I have it found it nothing short of a gift to become intimately familiar with the realm of mental illness, including in terms of my own diagnosis. It is, for myself, an avenue to personal insight and understanding. I am content, as such, with who I am.  

paoloreed@gmail.com