Of Comments. "Anonymous."

Paolo Jack Reed.
2019.

“This is serious. Look, this is not just a news story, this is serious. Those individuals in our state hospital, they deserve to have a proper safe environment. Secrecy does invite corruption. This is why these records have to be disclosed.” 

      Former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley, 2015. 

Are you listening, Bowen?

INTRODUCTION

PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse has always and still today welcomes all forms of feedback. We've no intent or need, quite frankly, to mislead or otherwise keep the public out of the loop in terms of what we know about the operation at Arizona State Hospital (ASH). The sole objective of this publication remains as follows: To specifically address issues that we believe to be harmful to the welfare and care needs of the ASH patient community. We also are willing to contribute what we can on behalf of those ASH staff who are, in fact, dedicated to this same basic mission. Thank you. PJ Reed.

That said, it has been quite awhile since we have received anything in the way of arguably harsh criticism specific to our exposing corruption at Arizona State Hospital. Such criticism pretty well only came our way in the first 6-8 months of publication, circa April-December, 2012, or so. And even then, we recognized that the tone of such criticism was in no way oriented towards supporting ASH patients, was always, rather, directed towards diminishing the factually accurate information included in our general content. 

Sadly, and beyond the fractured syntax provided, these (two) comments were not too well detailed, as most any such rant typically tends to go. So be it. 

Comment #1.

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. 

DISCUSSI0N

Arizona Administrative Law, (Title 9. Health Services Chapter 21. Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System- Behavioral Health Services for Persons with Serious Mental Illness) is only one body of law specific to the actual operation of Arizona State Hospital (ASH). All persons working at ASH under the auspices of ADHS are required to abide by the standards of law contained therein, albeit, most specifically in terms of administrative practices there. At the same time, however, Title 9 of AAC also applies actual care practices and conditions at ASH, this with direct regard for the conduct of ASH's medical staff across the board.    

"Common law", means bears direct residual effect on the eventually established terms and provisions of A.A.C., (as well as the as well as on standards of federal law). As such, the staff of this publication rely on all aspects of legal standards existent today, as are applicable to the issues most at stake at ASH; while Arizona's Revised Statutes in themselves only have a limited degree of authority over the operational care practices and conditions in any state managed health care facility in the Arizona at this time (2019). 

As a state managed facility, e.g., ASH is subject to a range of federal law, including but not limited to the US Constitution itself. Such federal law has more overall authority in terms of the rights of ASH's patient-clientele then Arizona state law does, this on the basis of all ASH patients being disabled as per federal and state law. And as will be discussed later in this essay, one bright line example of such superseding federal law is provided by the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.     

None of this is rocket science. Bottom line. 

Comment #2

I looked up her accident in the local Tucson newspaper. Her accident  was actually a suicide attempt. According to the New Times, the  reason she doesn't get an electric wheelchair is because she can use  aritficial (sic) legs and could get out of the wheelchair and walk  any time she wants. They doesn't want to enable her to be disabled.  Also, she probably doesn't even live there anymore. Get your facts straight before you go around accusing others.

DISCUSSION  

It is apparent, while still a bit vague, that in the latter of these two communications, the writer is referring to my personal friend, Audrey Peterson. Presuming so, what we provided in the essay-articles we have produced specific to Audrey Peterson to date has included what this writer is relying on, in effect, to challenge our expressed concerns in content. Reflective of the likelihood that the writer did not even thoroughly read the full content of whatever of our material they looked at. Nonetheless, and on that note.....

Yes, I am well aware that Audrey attempted suicide in Tucson in 2004. Audrey herself described all details about that event to me when we first met at ASH, including the bare bones fact that it she was, in fact, attempting sui-cide (Latin: "self", "death"). I, too, had attempted suicide prior to my admission to ASH, only one direct reason for how and why I was drawn towards Audrey's state of mind and emotion as patient-peer at the time. 

I believe it was 2004, anyway (I am not going to dig into my notes right now), but I do literally recall learning of this event when it was actually reported in Tucson news, as I lived there at the time. 

As to relying upon Phoenix's "alternative" news press, Phoenix New Times, as means to determine actual fact: These such such press sources are anything but useful in terms of well researched news. I should know, I used to work for two, The Rocket [Seattle] and The Pitch (Kansas City) in early 1990s, specifically reviewing musical events. No one employee of these two well recognized weeklies would ever claim to be the best qualifier in terms of critical news, simply on the basis of having far less in terms of resources that actual AP/UPI news sources possess. As such, these type papers are dedicated not to disseminating critical news in manner consistent with qualified news sources and journalistic ethics, but rather, to entertaining their very local reader base. 

Again, it does not take rocket scientist, to grasp this reality.   

More importantly, then, I would ask that nobody other then Audrey herself speak as to the truth in this matter. I can and do attest to Audrey's story as I know it, because I spent thirteen months in her company when I was hospitalized at ASH, where we become good friends.

But, presuming the staff of New Times drew any such information from actual interviews, etc., the only person or persons who I believe would have declared that they don't "want to enable her to be disabled" are persons working at ASH. Such as Audrey's primary care psychiatrist at ASH circa 2011-2012, when I was there. Dr. Rubi Ramos-Rojas, that is, a Filipino educated medical doctor (almost hate to say it, but the Philippine nation is hardly a bastion of democracy or human  rights),  who I attest via my own experiences as being 100% responsible for a range of wrongdoing at ASH over the years. This wrongdoing most definitely includes her destroying materials directed to her on Audrey's behalf, a patent violation of medical ethics and Audrey's express rights as as a disabled American.

So far as established law, then, the plain fact remains that Audrey, as a disabled person, is protected by federal law, as spelled out in the provisions of the Americans With Disability Act of 1990. ([42 U.S.C. Public Health and Social Welfare.) Therein, no person or entity- including the doctors at ASH- has the right to override Audrey's rights and protections as a disabled person, both mentally and physically. Such ASH staff may be of the opinion that Audrey has no right to an electric wheelchair, but that flies in the face of the federal laws that apply to Audrey's standing as a disabled person.

Roger Forney
ASH security guard, 2010-2013.
Hired to work there.
Despite his criminal record.
As a sexual predator of children. 

IN CLOSING 

Thanks, oh commenter! Rock on! 

As stated at the outset, it has been years since anyone has opted to outright criticize the work of the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse. This is fine, of course, but it is also noticeable as all hell that only at the outset of this publication's first six months or so, that anyone was of mind to take such a position. Indeed, and beyond simple critique, we have record of actual threats contained in such early-on commentary, most likely posted by persons who were encouraged to do so by ASH's corrupted administrators. 

Arizona State Hospital. A state managed health care facility that basically anyone of reasonable awareness knows has been subject to federal oversight and accountability on no less then four occasions since 1993. Directly on the basis all aspects of my allegations in the content of this blog.

And as always- even then- I do encourage anyone with legitimate experience about the goings on at ASH to share evidence to the effect that the care practices and conditions at ASH are better then usual (and then they were when I was there). This most necessarily includes factual evidence that the allegations presented in this blog are untrue or otherwise illegitimate. I would love to learn of actual  improvements at ASH, I really would. My sole concern has to do with my former patient-peers at ASH, and anyone else who in more recent years has been committed to treatment there, and my sole objective has been to contribute to improvement, and not conflict, per se'.  

Upon taking this route back in the day, no one of the writers behind those earliest negative comments ever came back with any such evidence. They did, in very real effect, fade away with out any further action. Following which, the 2015 scandal. Etc. Etc. 

Chicken shits, this is how I at times feel about such ungrounded comments, posted anonymously by persons arguably afraid of the truth, that the truth should become common knowledge, readily available on the world wide web, and so on. All to preserve status quo, for, as then Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley put it almost four years ago: 

"Secrecy does invite corruption.”

Of course, and as the record has so glaringly shown over the years, my credibility was more then confirmed circa 2013-2015, and during that period of time when seven individuals with direct association to the operation at ASH circa 2010-2015 were summarily fired on the basis of their corrupted ways. All seven of these persons had been identified in allegations included in this blog by that time. 

ABC Ch15's Dave Biscobing, in fact, came to me in 2013 through this blog, his verbatim first statement being, "You are obviously acting in heartfelt concern for the patients at ASH." Following which he drew from evidence found herein as means to initiate his own investigation of ASH. And on the story still goes.   

At the same time, and solely on the basis of me having no desire to hold an unnecessary grudge, I am more then happy to acknowledge my awareness that there are individuals working at ASH who do, in fact, serve in good faith. Good Staff, as I have more then once referred to, who I know try their hardest to get on with their work to the best of their ability, in defiance of the abject shortfalls at ASH, most of which occur due to administrative ineptitude, and associated management level staff there.

Some such Good Staff have in fact reached out this blog over the years, acting as direct sources about ongoing wrongdoing at ASH, always out of direct concern about the care needs and rights of the ASH patient community. Former as well as current staff, it should be noted (including some who were there when I was there), several of whom still reman in contact, even today. 

Maybe this most recent commentary was provided by such a person. Maybe not. And on it goes, until it's done.

paoloreed@gmail.com

Post-Holiday 2019 Update.

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

"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 

Public Commentary Posted To This Publication, 2016. Could not make it up- any of it- if I had to.

"Dr. Dingle is now in charge of ASH and he knew it was all going on."

Plain fact: Dr. Steven Dingle, one of the Arizona State Hospital's longest employed psychiatrists, who was found in the late 1990s of being guilty of sexually abusing women working under his direct authority, was also present during numerous phases of federal intervention in relation to patterns of operational and medical shortfalls that have occurred in gross violation of state and federal law. 

A New Year is again upon us. I hope you are listening, and listening well, any of you not on the side of the rights and care needs of the ASH patient community. Such commentary, well grounded and nothing less then public testimonial(s), does put you in a position to the do the right things. It is that simple. I do not care who you are. You've no excuse whatsoever if, in fact, you are not adhering to law, policy, and fundamental ethics in relation to medical care; and direct association with the operation of Arizona State Hospital.

This one is for you quite specially, though, Dingle. Happy New Year. 

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

my son was in ASH with you and I agree with everything 
corey nelson should have been placed there as a patient 
along with joel rudd
they falsified labs and treatment
and joel rudd helped in violation of his rights 
and mine as guardian 
where was the office of human rights in all this
they took me to court to get me removed as guardian 
so they could let him out of ash
joel rudd was involved with all of the whole dirty bunch
the minute I started asking questions, they booted him out
dr dingle is now in charge of ash and he knew it was all going on at the time and did nothing, and neither did joel rudd
thank god for you,  and reporter dave biscobing news15 
you brought down the dirty bunch including, 
judge Barbara spencer, joel rudd, corey nelson and donna noriegra. 

now the prison system has become the new DBH.

2016.

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

This one's for you, Dingle. 

Could not make it up- any of it- if I had to. 

Paolo Jack Reed. December 30, 2018.

As published in numerous articles produced in the publication since 2012, Hospital protocol effectively requires ASH patients to begin any reporting of concerns of care practices and conditions by taking such concerns to their assigned primary care psychiatrists. As such, it is those entrusted state employed physicians who are therein responsible to take those concerns to heart. Early on in my time at ASH thus (January-February, 2011), I did just that, take my own experiential concerns to my first assigned psychiatrist there, Dr. Laxman Patel. Who, in turn, patently refused to grant my expressed concerns anything resembling basic respect or regard. 

Dr. Laxman Patel, February 07, 2011, verbatim:

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

Subsequently, in the hope that the issues I was concerned about would be addressed in the interest of myself the far greater ASH patient community (and 100% due to Patel's blatant unwillingness to do his job in this sense), I was forced to rely upon the in-hospital grievance process. Wherein I only learned that all involved staff in ASH's administrative offices were no more able or willing to do anything then freaking Laxman Patel. 

Dr. Laxman Patel, February 20, 2011, verbatim:

"What, then? Do you believe you can change the system?" 

In April, 2011, after I had been at ASH for approximately ninety days, Laxman Patel first sought to prematurely discharge despite the fact that I was still struggling with acute depression and related suicidal ideation; after Patel's effort to do this, he then stated that he was unwilling to further treat me, and demanded that I find another doctor in ASH to serve, as such. This began a very inane pattern of me being passed from one primary ASH psychiatrist, five in a period of thirteen total months (January 11, 2011- February 21, 2012). No attention whatsoever to the theme of continuity of care, and utterly due to the plain fact that I maintained my willingness to share my concerns with pretty well anyone working at ASH, and most definitely with my assinged medical providers at ASH.   

At that time, these patterns and the directly related incompetence of such staff most definitely included the Hospital's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Steven Dingle. Bottom line, plain fact: Dingle as ASH's CMO has more actual responsibility over the conduct of the overall psychiatric staff there. This quite necessarily includes the failure of ASH psychiatrists across the board to serve the very real care needs of their given patients in a context of patient generated concerns about their given experiences.  

This went on for the literal entirety of my time as an ASH patient. No ASH doctor- psyche doc or not- was willing or able to take action in relation to issues that I made clear to them when I was there. As a man once married to a very competent and caring licensed nurse practitioner, a man who also has experience as a certified emergency technician (and time working in a county hospital's ER), I was basically floored by all elements of this crap. 

I don't know how else to put it. It was that bad.

And as such, it was only due to these and other such aspects of operational ineptitude at ASH that ultimately compelled me, PJ Reed, to go about putting my experiences on the internet in this blog. 

But even now, and as in 2016 when the above public commentary was submitted to this blog, Dr. Steven Dingle, known sexual predator etc. etc., is still being protected by ASH's current CEO, Dr. Aaron Bowen, as well Dr. Cara Christ, Director of ADHS. 

Dr. Aaron Bowen, November 2017:

"I am not going to allow anyone to call my chief medical officer a sexual predator in public!"

Are you going to get off your proverbial ass and take these issues to heart, Cara Christ? It is the presence of male dominated system of public health care that holds you back? Or is simply the same old B.S. we saw in your preceding office? You know precisely what I am talking about here, Christ, and I could really care less if your experiences in these current lawsuits (against you) go badly or not. You have it coming, as I see it, and I am far from alone in this sentiment today. 

Then again, ma'am, it is really never too late to go about this differently. I strongly suggest that you take this idea seriously, if you can actually wrap your mind around it all.

While you still can? 

paoloreed@gmail.com

All Thoughts With the Arizona State Hospital Patient Community. Happy Holidays, People!

And to all/any of the Good Staff at ASH (we well know of you, Jewels In the Desert), many if not most of whom are likely working over the Holiday. This, while the Rat Bastard folks most responsible for the exposed wrongdoing there, from back when and right up through today, are taking it all off. 

As always, this new year has at least some promise. Fair warning by now is old hat, you know who you are. No prayers for you or your kind. 

So sad! So true!     

HAVE FUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN

DR. CHRIST. ASSUMING AS I DO BY NOW,

THAT THIS IS YOUR CHARACTER

(OR LACK THEREOF). 

Sincerely, Paolo Jack Reed.

paoloreed@gmail.com

As to Dr. Aaron Bowen's refusal to provide records to lawfully established mental health advocacy resources.

      "The place is not better. Things have not changed. And for our clients, it's becoming more dangerous." 
       Attorney Josh Mozell. December 03, 2018.

    Public corruption involves a breach of public trust and/or abuse of position by federal, state, or local officials. Legislators, public employees, and other public servants may face severe consequences for violating the public trust. The range of penalties includes censure, removal from office, permanent disqualification from holding any state position, restitution, decades in prison, and fines up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. 
    Penalties For Violations of State Ethics and Public Corruption Law. National Conference for State Legislatures. December 03, 2018.

      The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner. 
       "Accountability" defined. www.businessdirectory.com  
     
     "Have I entered the third world, or what?"
          PJ Reed. January 11, 2011.
        

Dr. Cara Christ
Current Director, 2015-18. Current.
AZ Department of Health Services.
"Things at ASH are much better now." (2015)

Will Humble
Former Director, 2008-15.  AZ Department of Health Services.
Former.

INTRODUCTION: A bit of history.

Don't let those smiles fool you.

For a period of not less then seven years circa 2008-2015, Will Humble, in his capacity as the Director of The Arizona Department of Health Services (ADHS), actively condoned misconduct in the administrative offices at Arizona State Hospital (ASH). This includes Humble's patent refusal to acknowledge evidence to this effect, an extensive body of which was provided by the formal investigation of ASH by a major Phoenix area news media source, ABC/KVNX Ch 15, most specifically in the period 2013-2015. The most critically negative consequence of this issue relates to care needs and established civil/human rights of the patient community at ASH. 

Consistent with the above described misconduct of this highly entrusted state officials documented behavior in context, Humble unexpectedly resigned his position with ADHS in early spring, 2015, literally weeks before the final production (of the findings) of a formal federal investigation about the operation of ASH. Unexpected may well be a bit an understatement, given that Humble's full tenure in the ADHS system extended well back into the 1990s. I contend that Humble was alerted at that point in time when the proverbial shit hit the fan at ASH (by whom we may never know), and that he was therein protected from being held accountable for his role in what some mental health advocates characterize as the ugliest public mental health care facility scandal in the new millennium.   

Other directly involved state employees in this scandal include (but are not limited) to individuals either once (*) or still working (**) in the ADHS Office of Grievances and Appeals (Kara Burke **, Margery Ault **, Teresa Bedoni **), the executive offices at ASH (Donna Noriega *), the Office of the Arizona Attorney General (Joel Rudd *), and as this blog publication has reported far more then once, former ASH CEO Cory Nelson (*), (who Humble actually promoted in the ADHS construct in late 2014, despite rapidly developing evidence about Nelson's atrocious misconduct circa 2012-2014).   

Approximately four months after Humble's hasty departure, in May, 2015, Dr. Cara Christ was appointed as his replacement by Governor Doug Ducey (elected January, 2015). This appointment was actually an in-house promotion, as per the usual in basically any form of bureaucracy, Christ having previously served as Chief Medical Officer and Deputy Director of ADHS's Office of Public Health beginning in 2008. It need be noted that Christ's actual specialty in medicine is in obstetrics and gynecology, not exactly an area of speciality that might serve a true understanding of psychiatric medicine, or that of the needs and rights of persons affected/disabled by serious mental illness.

Subsequent to this appointment, in July, 2015, Christ herself made in in-house promotion of Dr. Aaron Bowen, who to that point has been the acting Assistant Director of ADHS Office of Behavioral Health Services (BHS), into the position of CEO at ASH. Again, a clear example of bureaucratic favoritism; in relation to which it should be noted that Bowen had worked directly alongside short time Deputy Director of BHS, Cory Nelson (who was summarily fired in spring, 2015). 

Over the first year of Bowen's time at the helm of the ASH operation, a handful of incidents occurred which basically gave the staff of this blog publication a heads up about the likelihood that the operation of ASH had not, in fact, much improved at all. This, despite the fact that Christ had stated in an July, 2015, email to PJ Reed (paoloreed@gmail.com) that: 

"Things at ASH are much better now."

Christ's best excuse, I feel, when it comes to the hows and whys for the crisis that ASH is (yet again) mired in today, flows from the fact that she is not trained in psychiatric medicine (as stated above). 

Bowen, on the other hand, is a licensed doctor of psychology, and has no such excuse.

DISCUSSION.

As per established record in recent months, dateline December 2018, it has been exposed that the current administrators of ASH are willfully engaged in failing to release/provide critical information and data; either public record as may apply, or material(s) that by law is to provided to particular qualified public service entities. These records include accident and incident reports compiled at the Hospital itself (public record) that are required to be provided to the state of Arizona's ASH Independent Oversight Committee; and private patient records that are, as per the Hospital Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (Pub. L. 104-191, 110 Stat. 1936), which are to to be provided to the Arizona Disability Law Center. Both of these entities have been established in accordance with both state as well as federal law, the core objective being oriented towards ensuring that ASH's disabled patient community is provided with medical care in a manner consistent with contemporary standards of law and policy.  

L-R: Donna Noriega, Cory D. Nelson, Jeff Bloomberg.
All of whom were fired from ADHS in 2015.

Circa the period 2011-15, former-since fired ASH Chief Executive Officer, Cory Nelson (and his associate staff), was found to be willfully involved in altering, modifying, or otherwise failing to release these same forms of records; which if utilized to the benefit of Arizona citizens across the board, as per the public trust, can serve to optimize the care practices and conditions at ASH (all of ASH's patients being Arizona citizens). It was clear then- as it is today- that the primary incentive in subverting this flow of information was Nelson etc.'s desire to avoid due oversight and accountability in direct relation to  the care needs and rights of ASH patients.    

In the words of an employee working in ASH administrative office, as documented in May, 2015, one key aspect of Nelson's egregious misconduct was described as follows: 

"When I arrived, he (Nelson) was using a black Sharpee to redact information out of the report before providing the copy to the investigative journalist. As he was crossing out information, he said 'This is the type of shit that gets people in my position fired!' "(See: "Records. Top AZ mental hospital officials accused of falsifying records, information." By David Biscobing. KNVX/ABC Ch15. May 18, 2015.)

Cory Nelson
Former-since fired
Chief Executive Officer
Arizona State Hospital

Prior to the eruption of scandal at ASH (2015), Nelson was hired as the CEO at ASH by a former director of Arizona Department of Health Services named Will Humble in 2011. The decision to grant Nelson this opportunity was made despite his highly questionable record as state health care official in South Dakota circa 2005-2010, wherein he left that state in a relative cloud of fiscal scandal and sleazed way into the position as ASH CEO in spring, 2011. (SEE: "Two former SD officials lose Arizona Jobs." Bob Mercer. Rapid City Journal. June 08, 2015.)   

And, as well all know today, during his tenure at ASH (and on as it led to his short term position as Deputy Director of ADHS' Mental Health Services), Cory D. Nelson and his associate staff then fell into a depraved pattern of willfully violating virtually all aspects of their overall obligations, granted to him and they via the public trust. Said public most necessarily includes the ASH patient community, patients' families, and on that obligation goes to the very extremes of the greater Arizona citizen community. The tragic death of April Mott is only one bright line body of evidence with respect to the significance of Nelson's misconduct in relation to the greater public's welfare. This carries in no uncertain terms to any such person(s) employed via the public trust, including the current administrators at ASH, and to those working in the broader ADHS construct. 

1) Enter Dr. Aaron Bowen.

Roger David Forney
One time ASH security Guard.
Convicted child sexual predator.
These sorts of people.

As discussed above, following the termination of then ASH CEO Donna Noriega in 2015 (and a basketful of other such state employees in spring, including Cory D. Nelson), ADHS Director Dr. Cara Christ  appointed Dr. Aaron Bowen to that specific position. During that period of time, mid-2015, the staff of this blog publication directly corresponded with Dr. Christ on more then one occasion; and we did, in fact, attempt to create a line of discourse with Bowen, as well, with no success.

Donna Noriega
Former-since fired (2015)
Chief Executive Officer
Arizona State Hospital

Christ, meanwhile, did at one point state to us that "things at ASH are much better then they were...." Which we were willing to accept, consistent with the fact that, beginning with the very first efforts of author PJ Reed to address abuses of ASH patients when he was actually hospitalized at ASH in his own right, our sole intention(s) and efforts have been of good faith. 

     "This is the state hospital, what do expect? Do you think you can change the system?"

POINT IN FACT: It was only after Dr. Laxman Patel (quoted above verbatim, January 22, 2011) refused to acknowledge the significance of PJ's initial reporting of staff misconduct and related abuses of patients to this man in late winter, 2011 (Patel was PJ's first assigned primary attending ASH psychiatrist, one of five such assigned primary providers in thirteen months!), that PJ chose to turn to the ASH/ADHS consumer grievance system as a means to bring these issues to light. (See this blog: "Fundamental Fact #1: Of Laxman Patel, a case study.") But as reported throughout the life of this publication, no other such efforts prevailed during the entire course of PJ Reed's time as an ASH patient; nor, as a matter of plain fact, in the latter months after his February, 2012, discharge from ASH, wherein PJ took those grievances via the appeal process to the Arizona Office of Administrative Hearings, did any other like effort to rely on the state health care system lead to anything resembling meaningful response or attention. All elements of this abject lack of respect for PJ's concerns literally exacerbated his depression and related mental health struggles as an ASH patient; the feeling being that, because PJ is affected by mental illness, he is not deserving of the same respect that American's across the board are deserving of when it comes to such civil discourse. And it is clear that, solely due to the graphic disconnect between ASH administrators/ADHS officials and the ASH patient experiences, this nature of negative impact on the wellbeing of ASH patients across the board is far from unusual. And it goes even farther even today, gets even worse.      

As wonderful as it may have been to receive direct response from Cara Christ circa 2015, there was no actual reason to take anything for granted. Lord knows that patterns of outright, misaligned propaganda disseminated by Christ's immediate predecessor, Will Humble, taught us all to well just how far these people are willing to go in order to deny the public accurate information in context. We have, thus, remained in close contact since 2015 with a range of individuals who bear direct relation to the ASH operation, from current and former ASH staff, to the membership of the ASH Independent Oversight Committee, and so on. And only therein, as the years have passed, we were forced to accept that nothing much has improved at ASH, if anything at all. This reality extends to misconduct by both Bowen as well as Christ herself, and has also been reported more then a few times in mainstream media, as well as herein, over the last three years.     (See this blog: "The Hope of Dr. Aaron Bowen To Convert The Operation of Arizona State Hospital To A For-Profit Institution." November 08, 2018).   

Failure to release/provide critical information and data; public and patient records that are required by law to be provided to certain qualified entities.

As stated at the outset of this essay, information has recently emerged suggesting that ASH administrators, namely Dr. Aaron and his immediate staff, are refusing to abide by standards of law and policy by which particular forms of data about the operation of ASH are to be provided to public resources. These records include accident and incident reports, which are public record, in fact, as well as private patient records, which are to be shared with certain qualified entities. 

It is apparent that beyond outright refusal to provide and of this data, there in also evidence of omissions of records, such as the October, 2017, stabbing of an ASH patient, which was not included in the 2017 ASH/ADHS Annual Report.   

A lie of omission is an intentional failure to tell the truth in a situation requiring disclosure. Specific legal definition of this form of willful deceit includes the term "palter" or "paltering", and looks something like this on paper:

- Merriam Webster, 2018: ""Lying by omission. 1. Something neglected, left out, or left undone; 2. the act, fact, or state of leaving something out or failing to do something especially that is required by duty, procedure, or law liable for a criminal act or omission."

- Legalmatch.com, 2018:  "Falsifying documents is a type of white collar crime. It involves altering, changing, or modifying a document for the purpose of deceiving another person. It can also involve the passing along of copies of documents that are known to be false, as well as omission of factual information. In many states, falsifying a document is a crime punishable as a felony. Many different types of acts can be considered as falsifying a document, including:

• Altering or misrepresenting factual information such as prices or monetary amounts
• Stating false information when requested to provide truthful statements
• Forging a signature
• Using official letterheads without authorization
• Willful omission of fact in order to deceive or mislead
• Knowingly using or distributing a fake document
• Destroying information material to an investigation."

-And last but not least, Arizona Office of the Auditor General, 2018: "Public officials with oversight authority have a responsibility to ensure public records are protected, genuine, and true."

There is no variance in the above definitions of lying by omission and the recently exposed willingness of Aaron Bowen to deny providing ASH records to those entities due such data, as required per established law. This is just the way it is. And Bowen has no excuse whatsoever to not know it. He is patently engaged in the same decrepit misconduct that his predecessor Cory Nelson is known for. All to the direct detriment of the ASH patient community. As I have contended well before now, the core reason for how and why Bowen and his kind carry on with impunity flows from the fact that ASH patients are disabled by serious mental illness. Graphically on point with the far longer history of discriminations against all/any persons affected by mental illness or other like disability.

This is you, Bowen. You. 

3) October 03, 2017. The near deadly, preventable stabbing of an ASH patient named Aaron Wallace.

April Mott
October 15, 1978-
August 30, 2011.

The staff of this blog publication spoke with with Phoenix attorney Holly Giezl during the winter of 2017-18. Ms. Giezl is a firm supporter of the rights and care needs of the ASH patient community as a whole, as well as the ASH Independent Oversight Committee in its role as a state sanctioned advocacy resource that acts in the interest of these rights and care needs. 

Ms. Giezl has since that time filed a lawsuit on behalf of the rights of Aaron Wallace, an ASH patient. (See: "Stabbing at State Hospital leads to lawsuit, questions about patient safety and security." David Biscobing. KNVX ABC Ch15. December 03, 2018.)

The suit itself pertains to the failure of providing required safety protections and security at ASH, failure that puts both patients and staff at grave risk of otherwise preventable harm. We saw this when Cory Nelson was at ASH, when he all but unilaterally cut ASH's security staff by approximately 46% in 2012.

POINT IN FACT: Author PJ Reed was present as an ASH patient when Nelson initially began this shit in mid-winter 2011-12, and more then one ASH staff person expressed to him very real concern about their safety at that time. Less then three years later, the AZ legislature had to take direct action as a means to address the heightened presence of patient on patient, as well as patient on staff violence, which only arose due to Nelson's graphic ineptitude as a health care professional.   

Today, as a direct consequence of this same issue, Cara Christ and Aaron Bowen are faced with being named in this lawsuit. As we have stated in earlier articles, if Wallace had died as a result of this matter, it is our steadfast belief that the public would have not been provided with much if any accurate information about his incident. But, as we have previously said, "Too bad for them, for he did survive to tell this story...." 

In the not so distant past, circa 2011-2018, there have been a number of preventable deaths at ASH and beyond which would not have occurred if not for the depraved selfishness of ASH administrators and persons still working in the ADHS construct. 

    -April Mott, murdered in 2011 by an escaped and known to be very violent ASH patient, an escape that ASH administrators willfully refused to make public, in defiance of public safety.

   - Chris Blackman, who ingested material (physical) substances in 2014, in direct sight of ASH staff, and who later died due to the refusal of ASH medical staff and to provide Chris with deserved emergency care. 

      - Mary "Frankie" Adams, who- during and episode of life threatening chronic obstructive disorder- had a horse pill sedative forcefully rammed into her throat by ASH medical staff, choking her to death. 

       - Barbara West, who arrived at ASH as a person dealing with acute suicidal ideation, only to be subject to abject negligence of ASH staff and the related absence of due protection specific to her respective suffering in context; due to which she very easily- quite frankly- did commit suicide within days of her admission to ASH.

These such tragedies must no longer occur. ASH is a hospital, for God's sake, Bowen and Christ are doctors. What more will it take?

4) Timeline 2018 

Paolo Jack Reed
Founding author
PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital
and Patient Abuse.
"You people are cooked."

As stated above, then: If Aaron Wallace had died as a result of ASH administrations  failure to maintain reasonably safe conditions there, it is our steadfast belief that the public would have not been provided with much if any accurate information about this particularly crucial incident; Bowen and company, meanwhile, would very likely have kept Christ out of the loop. 100% consistent with criminal misconduct circa 2011-15, Nelson and the rest, et al.

But that did not happen. Aaron Wallace survived. Bowen had no chance to cover up the details. So Christ knows all about it, too... And on this newest debacle goes. April had no chance, because of these people. Chris and Frankie are- were- friends of mine, and today they are gone, because of these people. Barbara West's family still grieves her preventable passing because of these people.  

It is still that bad. As one of Aaron Wallace's attorneys put it just the other day (Josh Mozell): "The place is not better. Things have not changed. And for our clients, it's becoming more dangerous."

POINT IN FACT: My  (PJ Reed) first ever direct interaction with psychiatric services and actual experience in a psychiatric hospital setting came about when I was forty nine years old; but I had to that time in my life spent time hospitalized in standard medical settings, knee surgery in 1983, salmonella in 1996, and so on.  While prior to my (PJ Reed) January, 2011, admission to Arizona State Hospital, I had spent over eight full months in privately managed psychiatric facilities, beginning at the University of Arizona South Campus's Psychiatric Center in Tucson (formerly Kino Hospital), and including in the St. Mary's Hospital extended care unit. I did, for the entirety of that time, witness and experience of range of concerning realities with regard for being hospitalized in such settings, again, my introduction in context occurring rather late in my personal life journey. 

But I attest to the the feeling and thought "Have I entered the third world, or what?"  within days of my January 11, 2011, admission to ASH. It is night and day, it really is, the gaping difference(s) between state managed mental facilities versus the other. I arrived at ASH, e.g., late morning, and as it only turned out later, a full bottle of Ambien (a sleep medication with a high street value) was immediately stolen form my personal belongings, either by security staff, or the technician staff in ASH's Palo Verde treatment unit. Later that same day I witnessed a Palo Verde charge nurse named Peggy (the old one, with white hair, who never gets out of her chair in the nursing station) psychologically abuse a very sensitive young man named Josh V. to such a point that he fell to his knees in tears. It was that moment, day one, that I stated to that war horse of a nurse: "If that's how you do things around here, you're not going to like me one bit." 

Could not make it up if I had to. Any of it.

IN CLOSING:

"The obligation of an individual or organization to account for its activities, accept responsibility for them, and to disclose the results in a transparent manner." 

That's you, Bowen, and you, Dr. Christ. The death of Barbara West... What is your goal, in fact, in refusing to provide full documentation specific to her short lived treatment at ASH? How is that you might actually believe that you'll get away with it? But most importantly, the question of why? Why are you people like this? 

(Where in the hell do you come from?) 

It's not rocket science. The Hippocratic Oath is based upon the doctrine: Do No Harm. The history of corruption, substandard conditions and care practices in state mental hospitals is extensively glaring to anyone of reasonable intelligence and awareness today. The shortfalls of the psychiatric profession (the one field of medicine not grounded in empirical science) are equally understood by many if not most Americans (it is, just in case you don't realize, essentially common knowledge by now), and the related negative impacts on persons affected and disabled by serious mental illness bears strong appearance in both academic as well as public perceptions. 

Bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy. The proof is in the pudding. I PJ Reed strongly believe that we would not see such a graphically unwarranted absence of medical ethics in anything outside of state managed public health care bureaucracies. This most necessarily carries into the confines of state managed mental hospitals, where the often crippling affects of severe emotional and psychological illness grant shortsighted if not incompetent medical professionals undeniable opportunity to get away with their unethical wrongdoing. 

I wish, I truly do, that it wasn't true. I sincerely wish that that I did not need to go after these people. For if I didn't, it only follows, the life experiences of persons hospitalized in these places would look far better to me today. And it has only become personal because I, too, have been subjected to the abject cruelty of more then one entrusted state health care practitioner, and the ineptitude of more then one entrusted state health care administrator/official; and is due, as well, to the fact that I have many friends still at ASH, persons who may forced to remain there for life due to the debilitating affects of their respective diagnoses. 

I sincerely hope you can grasp this by now, whoever you are. I really do.

paoloreed@gmail.com