Rarely know precisely who you are, but whoever who you are in fact, thanks for all the recent attention.
Six hundred sixty four (664) dedicated site visits to this publication in the first seventeen days of March, 2019.
We must still be going something right, even now, seven full years after the founding of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse.
"This is the state hospital. What do you expect?"
Dr. Laxman Patel, January, 2011.
As shared in previous articles to date, my maternal grandmother- whose name will be kept private and away from the twisted riff-raff specific to Arizona State Hospital (ASH) - was a first generation Irish woman. For a period of no less then thirty five years circa the 1930s-1970s, my grandmother served as a volunteer in a small variety of Chicago area public hospital facilities, including the infamous Chicago State Hospital (aka Cook County Almshouse, opened in 1869, shuttered in 1971).
As she described to me in the late 1980s, it was in that particular state mental hospital that my grandmother witnessed rampant abuses of the institutions patients, including sexual assault by facility hospital staff of mentally disabled children, and other such forms of abject cruelty. My grandmother stated in no uncertain terms that her experiences in that time had left her perpetually unnerved, coming to learn as she did that there are very real monsters in the American tapestry. She lived to the last days of her life afflicted by what we today recognize as post traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, flashbacks, the whole ten yards.
Paolo Jack Reed, 2014: "In all truth, it was not until I had spent the period 2010-2012 hospitalized in several Arizona based mental health facilities that I even recalled my grandmother's accounts about this shit. But most singularly, it was my experiences at ASH that rekindled the issues that she shared with me... so many years ago, now. And likewise, it was only after Roger David Forney's October 2012 arrest when he was busted for possessing child pornography, that the specific detail shared by her about security staff at the Chicago State Hospital came about in the memory of her communication with me...."
Notable as hell that Forney was a matter of plain fact hired to work for the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) in 2010, to work at ASH, following a previous arrest for the same horrific misbehavior.
That's right, could not make it up if we had to. In defiance of the public and established criminal record about Forney's sickeningly brutal personality, ADHS offered this monster safe haven as an employee in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility. Permitting him- a known predator, but far from the only one working there- to potentially engage in God only knows just what in a hospital responsible for serving the interests of a highly vulnerable population, where the theme, "What happens at ASH stays at ASH", literally defines the mindset of most ASH staff.
No surprise, then, that even today ASH's security staff are exhibiting overtly unlawful conduct. Most specifically, as reported to us in 2018, senior ranking members of ASH's current security staff (William Bugby, Randy Lewis) very much attacked an ASH security guard who had no willingness to contribute to the furthering of patient abuse there, via threats to his safety and professional reputation, which did force the man to resign that position shortly after we first began correspondence with him.
The history of state managed mental hospitals is irrefutable, and all too well known in the sub-currents of American knowledge about the subject as it still stands today. Dungeons, snake pits, and on the descriptions have gone for time immemorial. Do not fall into believing the premise, "Yes, but things today are much better then they used to be." Fact is, as medical standards progress in general, in state mental hospitals, such progress is all but nonexistent.
Nothing new under the sun. As stated in the public record (from 1898) about this particular institution, provided by the organization "Asylum Projects" (asylum projects.org):
As she described to me in the late 1980s, it was in that particular state mental hospital that my grandmother witnessed rampant abuses of the institutions patients, including sexual assault by facility hospital staff of mentally disabled children, and other such forms of abject cruelty. My grandmother stated in no uncertain terms that her experiences in that time had left her perpetually unnerved, coming to learn as she did that there are very real monsters in the American tapestry. She lived to the last days of her life afflicted by what we today recognize as post traumatic stress disorder, nightmares, flashbacks, the whole ten yards.
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| Roger James Forney. Twice convicted child sexual predator, former security guard, 2010-2012, Arizona State Hospital. |
Paolo Jack Reed, 2014: "In all truth, it was not until I had spent the period 2010-2012 hospitalized in several Arizona based mental health facilities that I even recalled my grandmother's accounts about this shit. But most singularly, it was my experiences at ASH that rekindled the issues that she shared with me... so many years ago, now. And likewise, it was only after Roger David Forney's October 2012 arrest when he was busted for possessing child pornography, that the specific detail shared by her about security staff at the Chicago State Hospital came about in the memory of her communication with me...."
Notable as hell that Forney was a matter of plain fact hired to work for the Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS) in 2010, to work at ASH, following a previous arrest for the same horrific misbehavior.
That's right, could not make it up if we had to. In defiance of the public and established criminal record about Forney's sickeningly brutal personality, ADHS offered this monster safe haven as an employee in Arizona's sole long term public mental health care facility. Permitting him- a known predator, but far from the only one working there- to potentially engage in God only knows just what in a hospital responsible for serving the interests of a highly vulnerable population, where the theme, "What happens at ASH stays at ASH", literally defines the mindset of most ASH staff.
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| Dr. Steven Dingle Longstanding chief medical officer Arizona State Hospital, known sexual predator of women employed under his direct authority. |
No surprise, then, that even today ASH's security staff are exhibiting overtly unlawful conduct. Most specifically, as reported to us in 2018, senior ranking members of ASH's current security staff (William Bugby, Randy Lewis) very much attacked an ASH security guard who had no willingness to contribute to the furthering of patient abuse there, via threats to his safety and professional reputation, which did force the man to resign that position shortly after we first began correspondence with him.
The history of state managed mental hospitals is irrefutable, and all too well known in the sub-currents of American knowledge about the subject as it still stands today. Dungeons, snake pits, and on the descriptions have gone for time immemorial. Do not fall into believing the premise, "Yes, but things today are much better then they used to be." Fact is, as medical standards progress in general, in state mental hospitals, such progress is all but nonexistent.
Nothing new under the sun. As stated in the public record (from 1898) about this particular institution, provided by the organization "Asylum Projects" (asylum projects.org):
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- "Although the keeper of the Cook County almshouse seems to be a humane, conscientious man, who conducts the institution to the very best of his ability under the circumstances and surroundings, it is nevertheless for so wealthy a county a miserably planned and badly managed institution.
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- The capacity is probably not over 450, while the number of inmates is sometimes as great as 700.
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- Of the manner in which the insane have hitherto been cared for nothing need be said. A new insane asylum in connection with the almshouse has been built.
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- The farm of 160 acres is worked in the interest of the county, the superintendent receiving a salary for his services. The inmates do nearly all the farm work, also the housework and make most of the clothing. There is a school upon the premises, which is attended by the greater part of the children between the ages of eight and 14...."
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"I really don't much like rules."
Dr. Lynn Lydon, October 2011.
This was Lynn Lydon's verbatim response when- in their first 1:1 physician-to-patient consultation, October, 2011- PJ Reed raised the same concerns about patient abuse at ASH that he had been voicing since his January 2011 admission to ASH. This specific doctor's exhibited lack of ethics shook Reed just as much as he had been disturbed by the abusive behavior of ASH staff up to then. For just a couple bright line examples by then:
-Physically assaulted by an ASH technician who bore resentment towards me for not putting up her shit, late spring, 2011.
-Retaliated against by two Hospital administrators (former-since fired ASH CEO Cory Nelson, and Dr. Steven Dingle [see photo above], who still today functions as ASH's chief medical officer) on the basis of Reed's refusal to relent in reporting of issues that he recognized as being harmful to the welfare of the ASH patient community, late summer, 2011. Moved against his will and in absolute rejection of his established diagnosis and actual care needs, from the appropriate treatment unit at ASH (and arguably the most peaceful) as per federal law and the terms by which ASH is licensed to operate, to one of the most violent treatment units there, which had and still has a specific designation to treat persons affected by acute psychosis.
PJ Reed has never been diagnosed with psychosis of any kind, much less acute psychosis. And yet there it is. These people put his very life and limb at grave risk of harm, and further, failed to provide reasonably optimum care simply in order to preserve their selfish interests.
The same goddamned thing happened in 2016, when PJ Reed was committed for the 2nd time to the Montana State Hospital (MSH). In his first stint at MSH, spring 2015, Reed had been subjected to abuse of power and outright incompetence by a staff psychiatrist named Dr. Colby Wang. Prior to his subsequent discharge from MSH in 2015, Reed did, thus, file several formal grievances about Wang.
Point in fact: The staff of this publication had no intent to take MSH on in the fashion that we had in relation to ASH. It was our desire to trust the administrators of MSH to do the right thing in context. And, in fact, it was confirmed in time that Wang had been subject to a degree reprimand in relation to those 2015 grievance filings. PJ Reed, as it were, had no wish to get wrapped up in the same degree of work that he was compelled to in Arizona. It is, plainly put, not a pleasant thing at all, this work, and is arguably unhealthy.
But upon Reed's 2016 admission to MSH, Wang directly interfered with that admission, reversing the original plan to place Reed on the appropriately designated treatment unit, and redirecting his placement onto- you guessed it- the most violent shorter term treatment unit. Which- you guessed it again- has a specific, federally required designation to treat persons affected by acute psychosis.
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| Dr. Cobly Wang Former-since fired staff psychiatrist, 2015-2016, Montana State Hospital. |
Reed was begrudgingly compelled to go about reporting issues at MSH only after Wang's blatant misconduct, and the unwillingness of Hospital administrators to directly resolve the matter on Reed's behalf. Yeah, sure, Wang was fired, but Reed's very clear efforts to be placed back onto the appropriate unit were patently rejected. Leading, as described very recently herein, MSH very narrowly escaped a termination of its contracted licensure in January, 2017, in large part as a consequence of Reed reporting endemic staff shortages at MSH to several elected state representatives.
Could not make it up- any of it- if we had to.
Paolo Jack "PJ" Reed, March, 2019: "It is in honor of my grandmother, and any other like American with proven public service in association with the disabled in general, that we have taken a moment to put this article up. Perhaps persons such as the director of Arizona's public health care system , Dr. Cara Christ (ADHS), will consider the stark and undeniable differences between the care practices at Arizona State Hospital (ASH) and similar facilities in the more privatized health care market."
And as a reminder, too, that regardless of established improvements in standardized health care practices over the long years, state managed mental hospitals have always operated in a manner that is arguably obsolete, lagging in this sense well behind what would be expected in non-state managed health care facilities. As a matter of standard practice, employing some of the most short sighted medical professionals in the land, including medical doctors haling from third world nations such as Pakistan and the Philippines, who if not for the presence of these such mental hospitals, would struggle to succeed in the realm of private or otherwise reasonably managed hospital setting.
An ugly reality, for sure, but that's just the way it is here in America.
Laxman Patel (educated at BJ Medical College, Ahmedabad, Gujurat, India) was the first of four psychiatrists assigned as PJ Reed's primary care providers at ASH. (Lydon was the third, and the only actual native American.) This graphic lack of continuity of care in my thirteen total months at ASH arose only due to the nervousness of these incompetents once they realized that the Reed's was not going to ignore the substandard care practices and conditions there. Passing me off, as such, to someone else as a hoped for means for avoid exposure of their overt lack of ethics.
And indeed, in my first weeks as an ASH patient, Patel pretty well alerted me to the fact that his employer, ADHS, had little interest in providing legitimate care to the severely disabled citizen- clientele hospitalized there. During the entirety of my time at ASH, I attest to having witnessed a range of disturbingly wrongful staff conduct, from some technicians to some nurses and to virtually all of the staff psychiatrists; and regardless of who I turned to there, no single staff person- including and foremost since-fired ASH CEO Cory Nelson and the current chief medical officer, Dr. Steven Dingle- acknowledged the significance of the issues at stake. Outright negligence extending well beyond the walls and fences of ASH and into the broader realm of the ADHS construct- including and foremost circa the period 2011-2015, former AHS director, Will Humble.
Happy St. Patrick's day, Rat Bastards.
paoloreed@gmail.com
