Further Warning to Dr. Cara Christ, and Her Underling Staff at Arizona State Hospital.

That'd be you, Dr. Aaron Bowen, underling that you are, and all of your own staff at this time. 

You have all made you own beds, so get on already with lying the hell down.

Arizona Center For Disability Law Settles Suit With State Hospital
         By Kathie Ritchie. Wednesday, November 20, 2019. 

Dr. Cara Christ
Current (yet to flee?) Director
Arizona Department
of Health Services.

Said warning is offered as it always has been. In reasonably good faith, but not in the interest of the state employed health care official with the responsibility of managing ASH, but rather, in a context of the care needs, welfare,  and rights of the patient community at Arizona State Hospital. Care needs specific to Rights that apply to all Americans disabled by serious mental illness, or any other type of disability. As per federal law, these such disabled persons are to be provided care in manner consistent with state and federal laws and established policy standards, including in a context of medical licenses that persons such as Cara Christ and Aaron Bowen have the express privilege of possessing. Yes, privilege and nothing more, the same that any other type of state issued license is produced, such as a driver's license, a dog license, and on it goes. 

Tom Betlach
Former-since fled
ADHS official. 

Plain fact is, Christ, Bowen, and a host of others (such as Tom Betlach, who resigned his position in the state health department not long at all after the law suit specific to above headline was filed- go figure) were behind the varied issues that were central to the filing of this particular legal proceeding. Namely, her willful refusal to acknowledge the critical need for advocacy resources to play  role in ensuring a reasonable degree of quality of care at ASH, and to attempt to shut down the value of such resources, regardless of how this nature of abuse of her power affects ASH patients, patient families, and so on. Just as with her predecessors in the ADHS construct, I contend the Christ  pulls this crap as means for her to maintain a a sickeningly corrupted version of status quo, in patent defiance of the rights and care needs of the ASH patient community. This lawsuit, ergo, just one more example of wasted tax payer money, 100% due to the willingness of the state's highest ranking public health care official to  to ignore the care needs and rights of the patient community at Arizona State Hospital. If Chist and her various counterparts had been able to recognize and value the efforts of advocacy resources such as AZ Center for Disability Law, versus going around the mountain and back in hope of thwarting these efforts, this law suit would never have been needed.  

     

I

PJ Reed. 2012.

It has been nearly ten years since to founder of this blog publication, Paolo Jack "PJ" Reed initiated a process by which to serve the care needs and interests of ASH patient community. This process began due to an event that occurred during Reed's very first moments following his January, 2011, admission to ASH, after ASH staff immediately stole a full, as in unopened, bottle of medication from Reed personal belongings. As per protocol- medication transport- this property in itself was placed on the vehicle EMS vehicle that transported Reed to ASH in what had at the time been a well sealed bag (before said staff' at ASH took control of this personal property, that is, and formally transported in an even more secure way in the  lock box of that vehicle.  

Within one hour of his arrival on the ASH property, longtime ASH psychiatrist  Dr. Laxman Patel forced Reed to be the subject of a strip search on the basis of these meds being "missing" from the property log that was produced by staff at the Tucson hospital that referred Reed to ASH. Reed fullt cooperated in good faith with this process at the time, not having any predisposition in a context of suspecting anything, per se'.  

A week or so later, when Reed inquired what they had been able to find out about the matter, Patel stated that the hospital's investigation had concluded that staff of the transporting vehicle were behind it, a claim that Reed was willing to trust. However, as Reed became increasingly aware of the shortfalls of ASH's care practices over the next few weeks into months, he reported the matter to AZ State Police (state police have jurisdiction over county to county distribution of any form of controlled substances), who went to the company that owned the transporting vehicle and directly looked at on-board camera technology, which confirmed the plain fact that it was someone on the ASH end of it all who had stolen those medications.    

This is how it began, then. Literally, upon his first moments at Arizona's sole long terms public mental health care facility. And soon thereafter, it only continued, in so overt a a way that no person of reasonable intelligence- mentally ill or not- would have missed it.  For only one bright line example, e.g., when Reed followed the basic directives included in the ASH patient manual, talking 1:1 with Patel about staff misconduct-  abuses of patients most specifically- Patel's first response, for only one bright line example:

 "What do you expect? This is the state hospital." 

Patterns of similar ineptitude arose as Reed's time at ASH passed, leading him to take further steps (beyond Patel, that is), always in good faith as this process began, in the simple hope of seeing that ASH patients were not subject to abuse, and that abusive staff not be granted opportunity to carry on or get away with this such misconduct. But no matter who he went to there at ASH, Reed learned the hard way that no persons in any sort of authority at ASH, from doctors to executive officers, were willing to do anything about this crap. 

In fact, as a consequence of his right and willingness to report issues detrimental to the care needs of both himself and his patient-peers at ASH,  Reed was formally, overtly retaliated against by the by former-since fired ASH CEO, Cory Nelson, and by Dr. Steven Dingle, who has long and is still the chief medical officer at ASH, as well. Forcing Reed from the appropriate treatment unit specific to diagnosis and established behavioral characteristics- major depressive disorder, and no history of violence or actual psychosis- and onto one of ASH's most dangerous treatment units, a unit designated in the hospital'n protocol to treat individuals affected not just psychosis, but by acute psychosis. It takes no  stretch of consideration to realize that all hospitals are required to provide a wide variance of specific diagnoses and treatments.Which is only to say: 

You wouldn't put a cancer patient onto an orthopedic surgery unit , would you!?! 

This was nothing less then an abuse of power, and an action forbidden by the provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act.  Mistreatment and abuse of this type compelled Reed- begrudgingly, at best- to go to a degree of effort ridiculously beyond what any patient-consumer should have to go to, in merely reporting these such issues, 100% consistent with simplest of civic duty. 

He did this because he had to, only to run into brick walls throughout all aspects of the operation of ASH, and more so the administrative offices of the AZ Department of Health Services. Which, quite obviously, is continuing even today, as I write this, in December, 2019.

Do not say that you were never warned!

PJ Reed. 2017.

paoloreed@gmail.com