Of Law, Policy, and The Public Trust.

So sue me already. Go ahead- I dare ya'!

This will be short. But suffice it to say that, given the level of education one has in order to be a licensed medical doctor, a fundamental if not inherent grasp of what it means to be trustworthy is something we all might take for granted. This, without even extending this status into the defined terms of the public trust, which all state employed medical professionals are 100% obligated to adhere to. This reality is clarified in their employment contracts with the state, don't matter what their given title or specific level of education happens to be. But it is only the disproportionate privilege(s) granted to medical doctors and the directly related presumption of entitlement over others- which has been documented in various forms of reporting, as though they are better then the rest of us, that furthers the longstanding potential in state mental hospitals of utterly incompetent if not cruel/abusive psychiatric physicians. Underlying in no uncertain terms just how and why the medical staff at Arizona State Hospital so radically get away with all the that they do.

Dr. Cara Christ
Director, ADHS,
2015-the present.

INTRODUCTION

Had a great lunch with a friend today, who brought up the topic of possible legal action in relation to the information provided herein since April, 2012. Names, dates, specific details, etc., about a range of unlawful, unethical, and arguably horrific staff misbehavior in Arizona's sole long term mental health care facility, as that extends, too, into the greater construct of the Arizona Department of Health Services. Which, to some, may appear slanderous.... Or whatever.

Fact is: Right off the bat, both slander and libel, as defined in law, requires one person or entity making untruthful statements about others which cause harm to the person(s) allegedly defamed. If, in fact, the statements/information allegedly harmful are actually true, no such civil action will hold ground in any of America's various courts of law and authority. 

No aspect of the allegations raised in the history of this blog publication have arisen out of anything short of factual basis. For example, and as personified circa 2012-2015, and the first two hundred twenty eight articles published herein, the focus in that period was on persons such as since fired Cory Nelson, Donna Noriega, Jeff Goldbloom, (and a tidy host of others).  All of whom have since since been validly confirmed as unethical to the core if not criminal in character, and clearly not qualified to work for the state of Arizona. 

L-R: Donna Noriega,  Cory Nelson,  Jeff Goldbloom
ADHS employed CEO, CEO, Attorney at law.
All fired, spring, 2015.

Fact is: It also need be recognized that all state government employees in USA are employed via the public trust, defined as follows:

"The Public Trust is created for the promotion of public welfare and not for the benefit of one or more individuals." 
       (www.businessdictionary,com.com)

On this most fundamental theme, no employee of the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) has the right to put their own interests ahead of the public. This does very necessarily include each and ADHS client, and extends to the lawful rights of the general patient community at Arizona State Hospital. It matters not what the title on any state employee is. From ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ to ASH's Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Aaron Bowen, the public welfare bears more importance then their entrusted positions in the ADHS construct. 

Herein, the need to have absolute transparency in relation to the conduct of such state employees. The core reason for this flows from the public's inherent right to know that their interests as consumers of state services are 100% at the forefront of employee conduct and behavior, and not that of persons employed in public service positions,. Ergo, It is, in fact, those state citizens- the public, public welfare- are the primary stakeholders in any such formal relationship. 

A Stakeholder is a person, group or organization that has interest or concern in an organization.
       (www.businessdictionary.com)

These standards of what defines the public trust underlie the most basic elements of what it takes to qualify for state employment. State employment contracts reflect this, albeit with little guarantee of direct oversight and enforceability. Which is why it takes extensive concerted effort to get the wheels of justice moving in context. I attest to having filed numerous grievances as per state protocol about the grossly outlandish misbehavior of numerous ASH staff while I was hospitalized there, but no element of the state's obligation to address such concerns ever came about, this is a plain fact. The ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals exhibited no less a degree of administrative ineptitude that I identified specific to the operation of ASH, willfully engaged in violating the procedural laws by which that office is to function. Time line requirements, for only one bright line example, which even the administrative judges who I in time took my concerns to after my discharge from ASH refused to acknowledge, in defiance of my citing such laws and these specific violations in convened hearings.   

As such, at all levels of state agency function, including in the aforementioned administrative courts, I observed distinct patterns of complicit wrongdoing. I have already shared such records in this publication. It is just that simple. 

Violating the Public Trust: Violations of the Ethical and Moral Obligations of Government Officials. A persistent issue in public personnel is a concern with violations of the public trust by public servants and elected officials. (www.research.gate)

The public, as in the general citizenry of any American state, have an irrefutable right to know that their interests are being served when it is the state who are to provide services; the public's right to know that their interests,- and not that of persons employed in public service positions- are 100% at the forefront of employee conduct and behavior. This takes on significant importance when it comes to health care, and even more significantly, when it comes to the care needs of at-risk persons receiving services from the state. 

Therein, flowing directly from the theme of the public trust, no state employee on the proverbial clock has formal protections in terms of privacy. This, the fundament to the very concept of "the public trust." Which is to say that, when working and being paid via the public trust by the citizens (the public) of any given state, their employees specific, personal identity cannot be denied to the public. 

In any/all state managed health care facilities within the United States, including mental hospitals, direct care staff are to wear name tags, including both the employees first and last name. No employee of ASH, thus, has been challenged in this publication when not actually at work.  The staff of this publication has no interest in the personal lives of such persons. Period. From administrators to medical providers to technicians, all referenced names in our material relate to periods of time when each and every one of the wrongdoers identified were working. 

On the clock. 

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

DISCUSSION: 

The relative shake up in the construct of Arizona Department of Health Services ("ADHS") in spring, 2015, (see Cory Nelson, Donna Noriega, Jeff Goldbloom , 3rd par. Introduction above),  directly confirmed the factual nature of the blog's central objective; that focus being to ensure that persons willing to flaunt their given obligations as state employed mental health professionals do not get away with the harms on caused by their misconduct  on persons affected and disabled by serious mental illness. Persons such as Nelson and his bottom feeding chums at ASH were the among the original targets of my expository writing about this issue. This is all there is to it. All of it.

As such, the credibility of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse was patently established by the events of early 2015, wherein no less then seven individuals with direct association to the operation of Arizona State Hospital circa 2010-15 ("ASH"). I was not at all surprised by the vast body of evidence unearthed circa 2013-15 via both media as well as federal investigation of ASH during that period of time. 

It was while I was an ASH patient, 2011-12, that the fire was initially lit. The subsequent founding of this blog, less then six weeks after my discharge from ASH, was just one more step in the process that I began there, as a then current ASH/ADHS patient-consumer unwilling/unable to allow the ASH patient community to be mistreated, unwilling/unable to allow the stomach churning misconduct of ASH staff and administrators to continue unabated. 

And then, the subsequent desire of KVNX/ABC Ch15 journalist, David Biscobing, to draw from our data in order to initiate his own investigation of the conditions and care practices at ASH.  

  

What did surprise me, somewhat, was the the willingness of authorities in ADHS to basically do their job, even if only in part. But it took years.

Expect when it comes to the ASH psychiatrists, that is, none of whom were subject to the same oversight or accountability that arose in spring 2015.

This most necessarily applies to doctors Steven Dingle and Laxman Patel. Both of them, ASH's highest ranking staff psychiatrists in terms of seniority, and both of whom were present, and ergo involved, in the repetitive scandals that have arisen at ASH since the 1990s, well before my own experiences as an ASH patient-consumer. 

I did have to deal with Patel for the first few months of my time there, who did, as shared in prior articles, state: "What do you expect? This is the state hospital?", when I initially relied upon him to address my reporting (to him) staff misconduct and the irrefutably harmful impacts of this on my patient-peers, as well as myself. Patel's failure to act at that time occurred in violation of his responsibilities as a licensed doctor, the applicable tenet being "Do no harm." Likewise, the ASH Patient Manual directs any patient to rely on their assigned primary psychiatrist, the implication, as such, being that these specifically entrusted physicians are able and willing to ensure that staff misconduct and other like wrongdoing not occur.

I also had the unsavory experience of interacting with Dingle on more then one occasion, in direct relation to his being ASH's Chief Medical Officer. This title in itself clarifies the fact Dingle has more awareness of the conditions and care practices at ASH then any other such medical professional there. As one specific case in point, it was Dingle, acting in tandem with then Chief Executive Officer, Cory Nelson, who drafted and signed the document that demanded I be relocated away from appropriate treatment unit, (Palo Verde unit) which as per my given diagnosis and known behavioral history is ASH's least violent, and forced onto one of ASH's most violent treatment units (Desert Sage). 

Dr. Steven Dingle.
Longtime CMO,
Arizona State Hospital,
known sexual predator.

This action was taken only one business day following the submittal of a formal grievance, filed on my behalf by a state employed human rights advocate named John Gallagher. Retaliation personified, on the basis of my unwillingness to turn a blind eye towards not only the harms imparted on other ASH patients by staff misconduct, but even my own personal experiences as an abused patient-consumer there. As exemplified, it only follows, by that actual grievance document, and those that I filed in my own right between January, 2011-February, 2012. 

Cory Nelson
Former-since fired CEO,
Arizona State Hospital.

Important as all hell to note- and you best be listening, Bowen, Christ- that, in graphic defiance of the significance of facts included in those such filings, not one of these grievances was taken seriously by any then employed ASH administrator or medical provider. Rather, the bright line result of my express concerns was the willful intent of Dingle and Nelson to place me in grave risk of harm as a hoped for means by which to silence me. Didn't work, either. Did it, Dingle? Could not make it up if I had to. 

Cory Nelson
Former-since fired CEO,
Arizona State Hospital.

Herein we observe the bureaucratic camaraderie of persons employed in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility. Persons more then willing to put public safety and the overall care needs/rights of their clients behind their own selfish and misaligned interests. 

All of it, gross misconduct in patent violation of the public trust by which such persons are employed. And it goes on today, as exemplified by the recent history of ASH's current CEO, Dr. Aaron Bowen; who literally  jumped up in radical defense of Dingle when a current ASH patient-consumer expressed legitimate concern about this doctor's established history as a sexual predator of women working directly under his authority (and who knows who else, really?). 

This overt action of unconstitutional misbehavior, which beyond furthering the presence of miscreants such as Dingle in the ADHS construct, did as a matter of plain fact violate the given patient's first amendment rights, as well. And what's really shocking (or is it, really?) is that, immediately afterwards, Bowen's bullshit was supported by both an ADHS attorney named Greg Honig, as well as Dr. Cara Christ herself. 

IN CLOSING: It is that bad. And if only these Rat Bastards did, in fact, seek to civil action against this publication, they would only be more openly exposed as just who the hell they are. 

So, yeah, go ahead and sue me. I dare you. 

paoloreed@gmail.com 

II: Different Meadow, Same Sheep Shit.

Jay Pottenger
Current CEO
Montana State Hospital

   "Survey faults care for older patients at Montana State Hospital; state says issues fixed." 

   TJ McDermott. Montana Standard. February 12, 2019.

The following text is "PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital/Montana State Hospital. Montana's Forgotten Suicides' " formal commentary to various Montana news press that covered the above scandal:

"Well, you don't say! Yet another issue 100% consistent for just how and why Montana State Hospital was subjected to federal oversight and sanction in early 2017. Where in all this, then, is attorney Craig Fitch, the so-called longstanding "Patient's Lawyer," who functions on-site five full days a week? And/or the facility's current Chief Executive Officer, Jay Pottenger, who in direct relation to the 2016-17 federal inspection process, exhibited gross ignorance in a formal interview about his given responsibilities, as per his very title? Why should we, the public and the patient community at Montana State Hospital need to rely on outside resources- such as in this case, Montana Disability Rights- to identify the issues at stake when Fitch and company are there on the front line of it all, supposedly in order to preserve/optimize the rights and care needs of the patient-consumers hospitalized there? It is the citizen based taxpayers who pay these people's salary, and as such, suffer the direct impacts of such ineptitude. Unacceptable to the nth degree."

Dr. Steven Dingle
Known sexual predator,
current chief medical officer,
Arizona State Hospital.

Relatedly, at that point in time when I directly reported to the current CEO of Montana State Hospital ("MSH") , Jay Pottenger, the fact that the facility was being operated in violation of very specific staff to patient ratio quotient requirements, AKA staff shortages, his verbatim response was:

"I am obligated to support the governor's budget."

This, in spite of my informing him that this issue puts both staff and patients at risk of harm, negligence and so on. I also emphasized the legal standard in context, that the license of MSH was directly at risk of being sanctioned, if not terminated. I had initially discussed this with the MSH Resident Advisory Committee, suggesting that we contact the governor's office about the matter. At which point, a senior ranking staff member basically insistent that we first discuss this with Pottenger. Which we did, in good faith. but as stated above, the bonehead was more concerned with the state's budget (and, it only follows, his salary) then he was the federally required standards by which MSH operates.

Emphasis herein, again on the basic idea of communication when it comes to bringing about meaningful change. Media is only one route, really, for there are varied ways to get crucial information into the public light. Indeed, it was in fall 2016 that PJ Reed notified two elected state representatives in a detailed letter about the fact that Montana State Hospital, "MSH",  was being operated in violation of the federal standards by which it is licensed. Compelled at that time by a staff technician only 20 years old who expressed grave concern about endemic staff shortages, who stated at the time, "I don't even think this is legal...!"

Which, of course, he was 100% right about. This is an accurate dynamic specific to the substandard conditions in Montana's sole long term public mental health care facility, legality, human rights, and fundamental public policy. This technician's willingness to simply speak up did lead in January, 2017, to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS") serving a formal Notice of Jeopardy in relation to the Hospital's license to operate. Following two separate CMS inspections beginning in late November, 2017, a final report issued over the 2016-17 holiday season listed one hundred and eleven identified violations of established public health care standards (Yes, you read that right: 111!), all of which the Hospital is required to abide by in order to receive federal insurance funding. And at the head of it all, endemic staff shortages, putting both patients and staff (direct care staff, mind you, and not the imbeciles occupying the administrative offices there) at grave risk of harm.
  

L-R Donna Noreiga, CEO
Cory Nelson, CEO
Jeff Goldbloom, Attorney
All fired, spring 2015
in direct association with
Arizona State Hospital.

All of this, on point, too, precisely one of the same violations of law and policy identified at Arizona State Hospital ("ASH") on no less then three occasions over the last twenty odd years. And as with the situation in Montana at this time, ASH, too, is still being managed in basic violation of the public trust.  As only one bright line example, just last year (2018) a lawsuit was brought against Dr. Cara Christ, director of AZ's Department of Health Services (which is directly responsible for the operation of ASH), filed on behalf of a patient who, due to a lack of sufficient staff, nearly died in 2016 when attacked by another patient. The aggressor in this matter was supposed to be closely monitored on a 24/7 basis. But due to the plain fact that ASH's medical staff failed to maintain this monitoring, yet another ASH patient suffered grave harm due negligence, medical malpractice, and with the responsibilities of ASH's current CEO in mind, Dr. Aaron Bowen, administrative ineptitude. 

All of it that bad.

While, in fact, MSH is also currently subject to several law suits filed on the basis of outright negligence and administrative incompetence. This is nothing unusual, either. We also question the Montana Department of Health's pavlovian response to this issue, seeking to assure the public that it's been "fixed" without providing any firm evidentiary information consistent with this claim. Indeed, circa the 2016-17 period of time, senior ranking executives at MSH fell into the same pattern of smoke screening the truth about substandard conditions and care practices there, 100% on point with what goes in Arizona anytime such issues arise.

Deny, deny, deny.

It takes little in the way of online review to recognize how widely these issues extend in America's overall public mental health care system, but especially in relation to state managed mental hospitals. iAnd yet, there it is, even this day in age. Graphic shortfalls in the care of our one the nation's most vulnerable populations, seriously mentally ill Americans who jut so happen to be hospitalized in state mental hospitals. There is no just cause for this to be the case, or for any state employed health care official to ignore this issue in itself. 

Including persons such as MSH CEO Jay Pottenger,  Dr. Cara Christ, and on that list goes.

In short, smiles simply do not suffice.

Dr. Cara Christ
Current Director
AZ Dept. of Health Services.

IN CLOSING: I will again point out that mental illness in itself does not rule out reasonable intelligence, conscientious awareness, or any other such aspects of human attributes. And that, despite my being affected by serious mental illness, major depressive disorder and associated traits specifically speaking, I and many other such affected persons have the capability to make a difference in American society today. The plain fact is that I am well educated, and was able to succeed in a range of achievements throughout the virtual entirety of my adult life prior to the severe late-onset manifestation of my worst struggles with major depression. I did, as such, deal with undiagnosed-untreated depression since I was an adolescent, in large part as a result of psychological and physical abuse during my earlier childhood; and yet, am in no way unique in terms of my strengths as a human being.

Dr. John Forbes Nash.
Nobel Prize, 1994.

As personified by persons such as Dr. Mark Vonnegut, Dr. John Forbes Nash, and numerous other like individuals of marked character and reasonable intelligence, in defiance of the discriminations against persons affected by serious mental illness. And by no means to blow my own horn, I too am able and willing to contribute to the public good despite my own respective struggles with depression, in patent opposition to the mindset that underlies such discriminations. 

Dr. Mark Vonnegut, and son Oliver.
Pediatrician and author.
"Just like someone without mental illness,
only more so" (2010);
"The Eden Express" (1975).

More then once have I had certain medically licensed professionals, always those working in state managed mental hospitals, question my status as a man affected by mental illness for no reason other then my willingness and ability to clearly speak out about substandard care practices and conditions in state managed mental health care facilities. Particularly in relation to places where I have personally sought treatment over the last nine years, always via involuntary court commitment. It is these such mental health practitioners who directly further the discriminations against the mentally ill in contemporary American culture, employed by any given state's health department, paid by any state's citizens, and entrusted as per the public trust to offer reasonably optimum medical care. 

Paolo Jack Reed.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Different Meadow, Same Sheep Shit.

Dr. Steven Dingle.
Current Chief Medical Officer
and known sexual predator,
Arizona State Hospital.

   "Survey faults care for older patients at Montana State Hospital; state says issues fixed." TJ McDermott. Montana Standard. February 12, 2019.

   "One patient described staff’s treatment as 'degrading' and resulted in her 'crying' and 'feeling hopeless' after she was reportedly was not provided with a catheter and physical therapy that had been ordered, and after her incontinence was discussed out loud, in front of other patients and staff...."

Cory Nelson
Former-since fired CEO,
Arizona State Hospital.

Jay Pottenger.
Current CEO,
Montana State 
Hospital.

"Degrading" is an understatement in terms of how brutal the misconduct of some state mental hospital staff can be, in fact. Regardless of where one looks in the American tapestry, even today, these such settings potentially offer safe haven for depraved health care professionals, so called professionals who flaunt the core elements of established medical practice.

Dr. Pervaiz Akhter
Former-since fled
ASH psychiatrist.

At Arizona State Hospital circa 2010-12, I can and do attest to the presence of one (but far from only one) staff technician, Elaine Traylor, who was allowed to abuse her patient-clientele, in spite of her known lack of civility, compassion, and professional character. A roving monster who, on a day-in, day-out basis, would verbally berate the vulnerable patients on the Palo Verde unit. This and any other like misbehavior is shocking to any one of reasonable conscience, and amounts to nothing less then psychological abuse. I also attest to the fact that Traylor physically assaulted me in spring, 2011, an incident patently condoned at that time by Hospital psychiatrists and administrators. Such as, but far from limited to the likes of Pervaiz Akhter, Dr. Steven Dingle, Roger David Forney, et-freaking-cetera.

Roger David Forney
Former-since incarcerated
ASH security guard
known sexual predator of children.

In Montana, meanwhile, it is no surprise whatsoever, the state's willingness to categorically declare that the issue(s) at stake have all but immediately been addressed and resolved in full. Herein, not only  individuals disabled by serious mental illness, but by age, as well. Doubly vulnerable, as such, attracting predatory abusers of  vulnerable Americans, who effectively feed upon disproportionate power dynamics.  

As personified at this time in Arizona by the Director of Arizona's health department (ADHS), Dr. Cara Christ, similarly employed officials in Montana's health department are engaging in outright untruthfulness simply in order to maintain status quo. As in: 

"Deny, deny, deny."

Dr. Cara Christ
Current Director
AZ Department of Health Services.

These patterns of denial occur in patent defiance of clear evidence to the effect that the patient-consumers reliant on such state managed health care systems. We saw this for a period of not less then five years, circa 2010-2015, when former ADHS Director, Will Humble, went around the mountain and back in order to defer the significance of abject shortfalls in the overall operation of ASH. He did this in utter defiance of a boat load of evidence to the effect that the ASH patient community was not being provided with reasonably optimum care, denial that extended to the occurrence of several preventable deaths circa 2011-2015.  

It is disturbing to know that these such entrusted health care officials, be it in Montana, Arizona, and on that list goes, have no understanding of the vulnerability of some proportion of of their given client-consumers. And that this basic circumstance further leads to the presence in state mental hospitals of abusive if not brutally aggressive direct care staff.

Likewise, at the top of the given food chain in these systems of public health care, we find high ranking officials who exploit their positions as means to further the issues most at stake. 

Abuse(s) of power personified, 2017-18.

  -Current ASH CEO  Dr. Aaron Bowen, who in fall, 2017, did willfully abridge the constitutionally protected rights of an ASH patient who expressed legitimate concern about the fact that ASH's chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle, is a known sexual abuser of women working directly under his authority. As such, Bowen exhibited himself as yet one more American male with no understanding of the traumatic significance of sexual abuse across the board, not at all unlike ASH psychiatrist, Dr. Laxman Patel, who in 2011 characterized my sharing with him my own history as a sexually abused child, by stating, on record: "He was allowed to fondle his older sister at the age of six...."  

  -Current ADHS staff attorney Greg Honig, who subsequently attempted to strike Bowen's behavior in this incident from the public record. In doing this, Honig exhibited an abject lack of legal expertise, both in terms of the involved patient's constitutional rights as well as in terms of the public's right to be informed of these issues; therein identifying himself as 100% involved in allowing the substandard care practices and conditions at ASH to continue.

     -Recently resigned head of Arizona's Medicaid program, Tom Betlach, who strongly sided with Honig's misconduct as means to see that this the information about Dingle not be made public. In relying on his status as high ranking state health care official, he also willfully sought to terminate the existence of the ASH Human Rights Committee, simply due to this resource's benefit to the ASH patient community. And yes, recently resigned, yet another coward fleeing the site of ASH's current scandal.  

  

Tom Betlach
Former-since fled
Director, Arizona Medicaid.

           - And ultimately, Dr. Cara Christ, who very aggressively defended Dingle's known history as a sexual abuser of women. I contend that in doing this, Christ willfully contributed to furthering sexual abuse of women, in radical defiance of the "Me Too" and other such elements of contemporary social activity. 

Dr. Cara Christ
Current Director
AZ Department of Health Services.

As an irrefutable consequence of these patterns of denial, which span the whole food chain pf power and status quo as it stands, a known sexual predator- Steven Dingle- is still today being paid by the citizens of Arizona to oversee the entire medical staff in the Arizona's sole long term mental health care facility. No matter which state hospital in America we are looking at, it is that bad. 

And these people know it. Shame, shame, shame. 

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

In Closing: A big thanks to our friends at Montana Disability Rights for standing up in defense of the patients at this particular state's sole long terms public mental health care facility. And as always, we're always willing to help. 

Wherever we are. All the time. 

paoloreed@gmail.com