"What do you expect? This is the state hospital."
Dr. Laxman Patel. January, 2011.
Dr. Laxman Patel. January, 2011.
INTRODUCTION
This will be short. I have little problem in admitting that the holidays are as often hard on me as they are joyful at this point in my life.
I did, thus, just spend a full week on an acute care unit over this latest Christmas into the New Year Holiday, on the basis of finding myself in emotional distress as the loneliness of it all washed over me. This is not the first time this has happened, me being affected by major depressive disorder, as I am, and having no remaining immediate family in my life; my best friends having children, and so on. It is my life, and I accept it, as such.
But as always: I was not hospitalized in a state managed mental hospital, and the care I received was in no way short of what I or any other reasonably informed citizen of USA would expect when in a hospital, in fact. Any hospital, I should add. From tech staff and right on up through the facility's actual supervisor (who I did in fact meet and talk with- nice man!), all persons directly involved in providing me care over the last week exhibited baseline ethical character. Just as they should have, in keeping with established standards of health care across the board.
DISCUSSION
This reality is 100% on point with my experiences circa 2010-2011 (pre-ASH), wherein I spent over eight full months hospitalized in, first, a county operated-university managed teaching hospital (University Of Arizona Hospital-South Campus [formerly Kino Hospital]; and, second, in a privately managed community care unit, (St. Mary's Hospital Extended Care Unit [since closed]).
I can and do attest that in neither of these specific pre-ASH care facilities did I find the care practices and conditions overtly disturbing. This is plain and simple fact. From technician staff and on up the proverbial ladder, fundamentally competent medical professionals who possessed basic ethical capability in relation to their at-risk and vulnerable clientele.
Then came my time at Arizona State Hospital. (It was like night and day.)
As I have shared in more then one previously published essay-article, I had no sooner arrived at the door of ASH, January, 11, 2011- literally- then some member of staff (likely security staff, in hindsight) stole a full 50 count bottle of 10mg Ambien from my personal property. Patel, weasel that he is, subsequently blamed this theft on the ambulance attendants who had transported me to ASH from Tucson. (At the time, 2010-11, Ambien had street value of up to $2.00 a milligram). Based on my near immediate suspicion that Patel was untruthful/inept in relation to this specific incident and other such issues, it later took me contacting the AZ State Police to determine the actual truth, a determination that was made after police examined the ambulance's real-time, on-board camera record.
And as I have stated before, after watching a Palo Verde unit charge nurse named Peggy (you know, the white haired war-horse who would never, ever get up from her seat behind the nurse's desk) psychologically brutalize a patient named Josh V., I experienced the sinking feeling that I had entered a third world medical setting, of sorts.
Compelling me, at that very early phase as an ASH/ADHS patient-consumer, to state:
Could not make it up if I had to. Any of it. I would never choose to falsify my experiences at ASH. I would prefer in all senses to believe that Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility is capable of providing reasonably optimum care to the citizen-patient consumers committed to treatment there. And yet, there it is, literally beginning on day one of my admission to ASH.
And on it all went from that point in time. Near literally day-in and day-out, and on through my summary discharge on February 21, 2012, (and even that process was not handled in manner consistent with the Hospital's own policy, I attest to this, no meeting of my treatment team, and the barebones fact that ASH administrators refused at that point to provide with my own accrued treatment records at ASH), I witnessed and/or experienced first hand abject exhibitions of patient abuse, care provider negligence, and administrative ineptitude.
It was that bad then, and there is no reason at this late date to assume that much at all has changed at ASH.
Today, for only one bright line example, we still see several highly entrusted psychiatrists (Patel, Dingle) working at ASH, individuals who have never been subject to the same degree of oversight and accountability that other ASH staff faced during periods of federal intervention over the last twenty odd years. This despite the fact that these state employed doctors (via the public trust) are in a better position then anyone else to identify the issues and concerns by which such interventions came about. These psychiatrists likewise bear the highest degree of responsibility in relation to the flow of care at ASH, as per the protocol included in the Hospital's own policy directives, as well as their very real obligations as licensed medical doctors.
All of this is bright line fact. No matter how substandard the care practices and conditions at ASH are, in fact, no primary attending psychiatrists have ever been subject to direct accountability. This is unacceptable, bottom line.
DISCUSSION
This reality is 100% on point with my experiences circa 2010-2011 (pre-ASH), wherein I spent over eight full months hospitalized in, first, a county operated-university managed teaching hospital (University Of Arizona Hospital-South Campus [formerly Kino Hospital]; and, second, in a privately managed community care unit, (St. Mary's Hospital Extended Care Unit [since closed]).
I can and do attest that in neither of these specific pre-ASH care facilities did I find the care practices and conditions overtly disturbing. This is plain and simple fact. From technician staff and on up the proverbial ladder, fundamentally competent medical professionals who possessed basic ethical capability in relation to their at-risk and vulnerable clientele.
Then came my time at Arizona State Hospital. (It was like night and day.)
As I have shared in more then one previously published essay-article, I had no sooner arrived at the door of ASH, January, 11, 2011- literally- then some member of staff (likely security staff, in hindsight) stole a full 50 count bottle of 10mg Ambien from my personal property. Patel, weasel that he is, subsequently blamed this theft on the ambulance attendants who had transported me to ASH from Tucson. (At the time, 2010-11, Ambien had street value of up to $2.00 a milligram). Based on my near immediate suspicion that Patel was untruthful/inept in relation to this specific incident and other such issues, it later took me contacting the AZ State Police to determine the actual truth, a determination that was made after police examined the ambulance's real-time, on-board camera record.
And as I have stated before, after watching a Palo Verde unit charge nurse named Peggy (you know, the white haired war-horse who would never, ever get up from her seat behind the nurse's desk) psychologically brutalize a patient named Josh V., I experienced the sinking feeling that I had entered a third world medical setting, of sorts.
Compelling me, at that very early phase as an ASH/ADHS patient-consumer, to state:
"If this is how you people do things around here,
you're not going to like me at all."
Could not make it up if I had to. Any of it. I would never choose to falsify my experiences at ASH. I would prefer in all senses to believe that Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility is capable of providing reasonably optimum care to the citizen-patient consumers committed to treatment there. And yet, there it is, literally beginning on day one of my admission to ASH.
And on it all went from that point in time. Near literally day-in and day-out, and on through my summary discharge on February 21, 2012, (and even that process was not handled in manner consistent with the Hospital's own policy, I attest to this, no meeting of my treatment team, and the barebones fact that ASH administrators refused at that point to provide with my own accrued treatment records at ASH), I witnessed and/or experienced first hand abject exhibitions of patient abuse, care provider negligence, and administrative ineptitude.
It was that bad then, and there is no reason at this late date to assume that much at all has changed at ASH.
Today, for only one bright line example, we still see several highly entrusted psychiatrists (Patel, Dingle) working at ASH, individuals who have never been subject to the same degree of oversight and accountability that other ASH staff faced during periods of federal intervention over the last twenty odd years. This despite the fact that these state employed doctors (via the public trust) are in a better position then anyone else to identify the issues and concerns by which such interventions came about. These psychiatrists likewise bear the highest degree of responsibility in relation to the flow of care at ASH, as per the protocol included in the Hospital's own policy directives, as well as their very real obligations as licensed medical doctors.
All of this is bright line fact. No matter how substandard the care practices and conditions at ASH are, in fact, no primary attending psychiatrists have ever been subject to direct accountability. This is unacceptable, bottom line.
 |
| Dr. Cara Christ Director, Arizona Dept. of Health Services. |
More food for thought, I might dare to hope, Dr. Christ (?).
It is deeply wrong wrong wrong for Dr. Laxman Patel to declare that a state managed mental hospital is supposed to be operated in a manner inconsistent with any other hospital facility.
Do you, Dr. Christ, share this same stomach turning sentiment about the operation of ASH? I mean, why is it- I beg of you to take this specific inquiry into consideration- that Patel and Dingle and all other such miscreants at ASH are not expected to provide the same level of care that physicians in the private/community sector are obligated to provide? How is it that in the late 90s, and again in circa 2014-15, no such medical providers at ASH were held accountable for proven shortfalls at ASH, as evidenced by the role of the federal government in it all?
The New Year is already telling your story for you, Dr. Christ. You have the law suit(s), you have the documented record of your abuse of the Human Rights Committee, you have your overt defense of a known sexual predator, and you have your unwillingness to defend the civil rights of ASH patients (in favor of defending Bowen)... And on the list goes by now.
More to come. And you've no one to blame but yourself.
paoloreed@gmail.com
It is deeply wrong wrong wrong for Dr. Laxman Patel to declare that a state managed mental hospital is supposed to be operated in a manner inconsistent with any other hospital facility.
Do you, Dr. Christ, share this same stomach turning sentiment about the operation of ASH? I mean, why is it- I beg of you to take this specific inquiry into consideration- that Patel and Dingle and all other such miscreants at ASH are not expected to provide the same level of care that physicians in the private/community sector are obligated to provide? How is it that in the late 90s, and again in circa 2014-15, no such medical providers at ASH were held accountable for proven shortfalls at ASH, as evidenced by the role of the federal government in it all?
The New Year is already telling your story for you, Dr. Christ. You have the law suit(s), you have the documented record of your abuse of the Human Rights Committee, you have your overt defense of a known sexual predator, and you have your unwillingness to defend the civil rights of ASH patients (in favor of defending Bowen)... And on the list goes by now.
More to come. And you've no one to blame but yourself.
paoloreed@gmail.com
The common law hasn't existed in Arizona since 1959. That year the Arizona State legislature specifically abolished it and replaced it with the Arizona Revised Statutes. From then until now, court ordered patients are under the Arizona Patient Bill of Rights, which is part of the Revised Statutes. That's the document you should be looking at, not the Common Law.
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