Just One More Suicide in Montana.

Of My Premature Discharge from The Montana State Hospital on February 16, 2017; and of suicide in the state of Montana.

I will die before any of you read this. 

Yet again, 2016-17, the state of Montana has the highest suicide rate in the United States. 

I obviously am in the right place to die.

Patrick Paolo Pickens. February 26, 2017.

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

BECAUSE I AM MENTALLY ILL:

They would imply that I am a fraud because I care as much about others as I do myself . 

That it is not mental and emotional anguish that leads me to ask for their help, but rather...

Some nature of selfishness that puts them at risk of being exposed for who they are.  

That... as one mental health evaluator named Brooks put it the other day: 

"It is very hard to tell if you being more a patient advocate, or a patient."

As though that matters. Speaking out as and when I do about the abuses of persons affected as I am by serious mental illness. While having the gall to suffer as well from mental illness.

They hate that. How dare I.

BECAUSE I AM MENTALLY ILL:

They would see my history as anything other then that of a human history, and portray my sense of ethos and performance as deceptive. 

Because they have no ethos in their own right, and are incapable of beauty in the name humankind.  

BECAUSE I AM MENTALLY ILL:

They would paint  my character as anything other then that of a man who can see well enough to weed out abject ineptitude and depraved human nature when it bowls me over in alleyways hidden to the greater public... 

Because I do so, strive to do this as any situation may demand, and ask nothing more then repeat not for these efforts, but because I am in need.

To cover their asses, they would declare
that any of my sincere attempts to die by own hand are not fact.

As though  I never wanted to die.

YES I AM ETHICAL.  

YES I AM ALCOHOLIC. 

SO THE FUCK WHAT? 

DOES THIS MEAN THAT I AM NOT ALSO AFFECTED BY MENTAL ILLNESS? 

ARE YOU THIS MIRED IN THE HISTORY OF BRUTAL DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE MENTALLY ILL? 

BECAUSE I AM MENTALLY ILL:

I am faced with all of the above. My given illness is sharp as a razor, and my desire to die as keen as a new born sun.  But those who I have turned to in recent days into weeks into months have virtually laughed at me, have sought to turn me away. "Back into the community" is the catch phrase they use, "Fit and safe for discharge and outpatient treatment" is the parlance they rely upon. In their paperwork. On there various forms. 

Not hearing me when I state in no uncertain terms "I should be dead by now, this is plain fact, and I wish I was."

I have tried to pull out of it all. For the good, for what I call "the living side of this forsaken game." I see a calling for me or someone like me to make these issues public. To put these people on the proverbial chopping block. Because someone has to, and nobody else will.

They have done this, and will strive to continue doing so, because it is in there nature. Skin of reptile, Machiavellian afterbirth. 

You know who you are: 

-Dr. Richard Holt. 

-Doctor of Nursing Carlie Hillenbrand.

-Program manager Jeff Pfluge. 

-Patients' lawyer Craig Fitch. 

-Patient grievance committee chairperson -Kathleen Duganz. 

-Unit manager Mark Proxell. 

-MT State Hospital CEO Jay Pottenger.

-MT Director of Addictive and Mental Disorders Division Zoe Barnard. 

And on this list can go.

Each one of these individuals, and many more who work as entrusted members if the montana health care system, know damn well:

That I am still suicidal and have been for months. That I am still at high risk of harm to self and have been for months. That I have twice been prematurely discharged from the Montana State Hospital, most recently on February 16, 2017, after only twenty days of in-patient treatment and in graphic defiance of my stating my intent to kill myself. 

And that the only reason I am not dead today is because I have been willing to trust you. All of you.

BECAUSE I AM MENTALLY ILL:

Each of you have worked together in deciding to characterize me as a person not legitimately at risk of suicide. In order to preserve status quo, you have all done this. Opting even if somewhat logically to risk erring on the side of risk/death over erring of the side of safety. 

And each one of you knows that you simply don't want me in your fucking hospital because I know how to names names. Your names. It has nothing at all do with my wellbeing. Nothing. At all. 

And you all know it. 

Yes, I have tried to pull out of it. My ongoing, current struggle with suicidal ideation. I have remained sober. I have sat on my hands.  So much that this struggle is no longer a struggle, but a need. No person should have to live with what I have tried to live with. Including the presence of these particular monsters in my "life". It is no way to live. 

I will die before any of you read this. 

Yet again, 2016-17, the state of Montana has the highest suicide rate in the United States. 

I obviously am in the right place to die.

Patrick Paolo Pickens. February 26, 2017.

I will die in large part because of you. 

But I am human. 

Your names are known, and you won't get away with it. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

MONTANA STATE HOSPITAL ALMOST LOSES ITS LICENSE TO OPERATE.

THE FOLLOWING WAS EXCERPT PUBLISHED IN THIS BLOG FEBRUARY 18, 2017.

In June, 2013, the federally managed Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services formally sanctioned The Arizona State Hospital (ASH) on the basis of that long term public mental health care facility's willingness to flaunt state and federal law. Central to the earliest evidence that brought on this sanction was the fact that ASH was failing to maintain required staff to patient quotient (ratios). And while it took another 14 months before the hammer fully came down on ASH (September, 2014 and beyond), this due to the facility's ongoing refusal to bring its operation up to standard, it was indeed the CMS intervention that got the ball rolling. 

Fair warning. 

-paoloreed@gmail.com 
` (END OF EXCERPT)

Fair warning, indeed. 

In recent months, Montana's sole long term public mental health care facility, The Montana State Hospital (MSH) at Warm Springs, has increasingly fallen under the shadow of federal oversight, sanction, and intervention. And consistent with the sordid history underlying the exposure of what some today characterize as "The ugliest public mental health facility scandal in the last seventy five years," it is increasingly apparent that MSH will in some matter of time share the status of The Arizona State Hospital as a result of MSH' administrators and related state officials willingness to try and misrepresent or otherwise hide the truth, even as said truth emerges in the public eye.

"Feds find state hospital put patients at risk, almost terminated agreement."

• HOLLY MICHELS. LEE NEWSPAPERS.
• January 27, 2017.

"Montana State Hospital, the state’s publicly run psychiatric facility, was set to lose its federal agreement in February because of what’s called an 'immediate jeopardy,'' a situation where the hospital’s noncompliance with federal regulations was considered serious enough to risk death or serious injury to a resident."

"After a legal notice was published in The Montana Standard on Thursday announcing the termination – set for Feb. 8 – of the agreement between the Warm Springs hospital and the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, the agency sent the paper a notice of retraction, saying that the situation that put residents at significant risk had been “abated.”

'The hospital is in the middle of a federal survey now', said Department of Public Health and Human Service public information officer Jon Ebelt, so the information that can be made public is limited.' 

Those with knowledge of the hospital said surveyors were on-site this week."

So. State health care officials don't want to inform the tax payers who pay their salaries of what's going on at Montana State Hospital. 

Go figure.

The staff of Montana State Hospital: Montana's Forgotten Suicides have recently been provided with the following data:

1) MSH staff-generated reports circa September, 2016, about alarming  employee shortages led to a formal patient generated letter document that was forwarded in mid October, 2016, to Montana senators Debbie Barrett (R- Dillon) and Ron Elhi (R- Hamilton). That document in turn served to compel the above described CMS investigative process, and a current federal sanction that requires state health care officials to bring the facility up to speed with contemporary medical standards. These staff shortages are still occurring in gross violation of federally required staff to patient quotients (ratio). The risks associated with such violations   continually put MSH patients at direct risk of harm to self or others, while also posing some degree of risk to the facility's direct care staff, namely hospital nurses and technicians. It should be noted that there are no shortages in staff at the level of hospital administrators or related state health department officials (their jobs and salaries are secure), and that this issue also does not pose risk to hospital supervisors or administrators. Go figure.

2) Also in October, 2016, current MSH Chief Executive Officer, Jay Pottenger, was formally informed by members of the MSH Resident Advisory Council of this particular issue and its impacts on patient safety.  Sadly, the man took no immediate action at that time, thus compelling the now in effect federal sanction that MSH has yet to emerge from, at the taxpayer expense. Live and learn, Mr. Pottenger, live and learn. The hard way....

3) Monitoring of patients is a very critical element to mental health care. In reviewing whether MSH staff were adhering to specific state and federal monitoring guidelines, CMS officials determined that the requirement of routine bed room "checks" on an every fifteen minute basis was all but ignored, and have thus imposed a much stricter routine of conducting those checks every five minutes, ostensibly so that hospital administrators will get the point. But even after this particular requirement was imposed on the basis of those findings, MSH staff have still failed to maintain such routine checks, this largely due to the aforementioned staff shortages. One more bright line example of how out of standard that the operation of MSH is, in fact.

4) Due to identified violations of federal medical standards at MSH, client-consumer-patients currently have to ask permission in order to be allowed to use any bathroom located on patient treatment units. Permission... to go to the bathroom. Dignity, anyone?

5) Due to identified violations of federal medical standards at MSH, there are currently no mirrors on any of the patient treatment units. There were mirrors, but apparently , they were not up to par with federal standards. Thus, no means at this time for client-consumer-patients to meaningfully groom themselves. Again- Dignity, anyone? 

The above data is partial. Which is to say that, yes, we have more.

But MT Department of Health and Human Services  Jon "Propaganda Minister" Ebelt can suck on this for now, as can Zoe Barnard and other like ne'erdowells in the department's far broader construct. 

Your time is coming. And you know who you are.

IN CLOSING: FAIR WARNING. AGAIN.

And big thanks to Holly Michels of Lee Newspapers for doing the right thing and bringing this news out of the gutter and into the daylight. Montanans have the right to know. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

Colby C. Wang, Rat Bastard. AKA Colby "Now fired!" Wang.

This particular item (see below, article Dateline: December 2016) was drafted by associate staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse (paoloreed@gmail.com) at the tail end of founding author PJ Reed's treatment in Montana's respective sole long term public mental health care facility. As such, the following was originally published November 14, 2016 in that Arizona focused publication. A brief note attached to the provided  draft materials read as follows: 

Hey kids! Well, no suprise at this juncture of the shit storm that I am encountering up here in Big Sky country (home of the highest suicide rate in the nation- AGAIN!) is way spookily similar to ASH, including stomach churning wrongdoing that extends well beyond the unit I am on, which as you know underlies the premise of my recently suggested blog project, or more succinctly speaking, the unit that I was unlawfully forced onto as a matter of overt retaliation that to date has been condoned and in fact endorsed by the Hospital's still wet behind the ears current CEO, Jay Pottenger. Another Cory Nelson in the making? We shall see. Equally disturbing and I will have to cut it short because I and all MSH patients get uber-limited internet time, my begrudged investigation via self-advocacy into the role that this facility's "Patient Grievance Committee" plays in furthering the violations of patient rights as matter of standard practice. It's looking pretty grim on my end, but... that's ok. Been here done it. 

Also, take a look and disperse the following however you deem fit in my absence. 

"Senate President asks for audit looking into claims of waste, fraud, abuse in state agency."  
               Lee Newspapers/State Bureau October 20, 2016

Classic "Couldn't make this shit up if I had to" material, ala the old days, yes? Ok then. Keep it up. Stay in touch with Moses and Biscobing. And as always, thanks. I am all kisses sent your way....   

Dateline: December, 2016.
RE: Montana State Hospital, Warm Springs, MT.

Montana's Forgotten Suicides.

The Montana State Hospital, Montana media,

and cowboy culture.

This, the new blog, soon to come, blogspot.com.

This still to be formally founded blog project will take a concerted look at the plain fact that for decades, the state of Montana has either been one of if not the one state with the highest rate of suicide rate in the nation. A very distubing status that Montana yet again achieved in 2015: Numero Uno. This fact in itself has attracted more then a reasonable degree of attention from Montana media, but not in such a manner that there has ever been serious consideration for the causations underlying this specific history. It is one thing to highlight variously emergent resources available to the public when it comes to suicide, as in Hotline numbers and governor sponsored contact information in the context, but another thing altogether to take on the task of exploring just why in the hell Montana has for so long been the site of this issue. 

I am writing this from Montana's only long term public mental hospital, 
MT State Hospital at Warm Springs. Where I have witnessed a revolving door policy and obviously pre-mature discharges on a near daily basis. Fair enough to claim as managing Hospital staff love to that this is a positive reflection on the theme of not keeping folks here any longer then necessary. But what I have seen falls well short of this in terms of actual benefit to at lease some of the client-patients so affected. 

In later articles, we the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse will detail this issue more throughly in our upcoming blog project.

Montana's Forgotten Suicides. Montana State Hospital, Montana media, and cowboy culture.

But for the moment, given that I am in the state with a suicide rate that is twice that of the national average, consider the plain fact that with suicide in mind and the direct risk that pre-mature discharges most necessarily play in contributing to this crisis, what we are looking at here in Montana is a publically funded health care system incapable of meeting its obligations in a context of improving the matter as it stands. An issue most loudly reflected by the operational practices of Montana's state mental hospital.

It is that obvious. It is that bad.

And even when the state's primary media resources, who eagerly publish articles not about meaningful investigation into the deeper story (as in why why why how how how is this so?),  were provided with jump start material to go after this nature of investigation, they backed off like a pack of sneering hyenas.

Afraid, most likely, of shaking up the status quo hereabouts; journalism gone bad. Again. 100% on point with Arizona's primary newspaper, The Arizona Republic, circa 2011-12. Abject dereliction of journalistic duty when irrefutable data about abuses of one of America's most at-risk and vulnerable to negligence etc. is literally placed in the lap of news sources. 

That's how we see it, at least, and that's why we do what we do, in fact. Yep.

In this regard, the staff of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse will again do whatever it takes to delve into the matter as it still stands, with particular regard for recently exposed and still emerging corruption in the state of Montana's overall public health care system, and the associated fact that funding specific to mental health services lags far behind services in other areas of health care. 

And as personified in well known Montana traditon, the relationship that the pull your up by your own bootstraps mentality of traditional Montana cultural mentality plays in furthering indifference and neglect that undeniably contributes to this ongoing crisis as it still stands in 2016. We have our work to do, yes, but already we can see as bright as day that this is going to be one monster of a good story.

A story beginning with the sordid presence of one:

Colby C. Wang, MD

Or, more succinctly:

Colby "Now Fired!" Wang

As it should be. And should have been. Because it was a good 18-19 months ago that this Rat Bastard was identified as who and what he is. In relation to which we the BLOG took good faith action is seeking to draw the attention of Wang's employer, The Montana State Hospital. And, as usual in terms of how this always goes (quite frankly), because those individuals employed at said hospital and most in a position to remedy the matter blatantly refused to do the right thing when they originally should have. Thus permitting the harmful impacts of Wang's
 ineptitide and associated abuse of his entrusted authority to continue unabated for that period of time, until we the BLOG were forced to go through it all over again.

ALL OF IT.

And while we are still researching to precise stick that broke the proverbial camel's back in this particular debacle, the plain fact is, that this doctor met his fate in direct relation to the filings we the BLOG submitted to Montana Department of Health and Human Services. That's right. Sometime in late October, 2016, Wang was fired. Thus earning this new writing projects first official nickname.

                              Colby "Now fired!" Wang

First encountered in early summer, 2015, yet another highly questionable licensed psychiatrist employed in one the nation's various state hospitals, The Montana State Hospital (MSH), Warm Springs, MT, this man accrued an investigative file no less then 2.5" thick and maintained by the good folks with Montana Disability Rights, a non-profit entity required by federal law to investigate reports of violations under state and federal law in the context of disabiity.  This record was complied during the entirety of his seventeen months of employ in Montana, beginning with his being hired by the Montana Department of Health and Human Services and appointed as a primary care physician at MSH, and his finally being fired in October, 2016. But only after the unwillingess of Hospital officials to do the right thing when they first had clear eveidence to the effect. Which is where we come in. We are still amassing out data base and associated evidential materials about the the particular Rat Bastard's now proven ineptitude, but to date there is no shortage of this stuff.

Because somebody had to do something. And nobody else would. 

Indeed, as in Arizona, we are today doing this on behalf of persons affected by serious mental illness across the board, in Montana and beyond, because- you guessed it- somebody has to. Sadly, but not suprisingly, over the last eighteen months we have sought to compel a number of Montana based mental health care advocacy resources to take a good hard look at this state's sole long term public mental health care facility. Only to find- again, just as we did in Arizona circa 2010 and on into 2015- that none of the state employed individuals best able to have addressed this Rat Bastard's misconduct refused to do so.

Putting it on us.

As famed author Clifford W. Beers put it in his seminal text, A Mind That Found Itself  (first publication 1905): 

"Point me to injustice, and let me do the rest."

This article must remain short, for we are still setting up out new office, but it should serve to give fair warning to what comeing next in terms of PJ Reed The Arizona State Hospital and Patient Abuse's newest investigative project.

IN CLOSING: By the way, "Dr." Wang. You can run. But you can't hide. Welcome to the realm of guerrilla journalism, asshole.

See you in court. 

paoloreed@gmail.com

Chief Culprits. (And that's putting it mildly)

First impressions in 3 words/terms or less, December, 2016. (This is not an article... Ha! We love the spirit of guerrilla journalism.... Pretty much do whatever we want, so long as it's sound information.)

Carly Hillenbrand, Phd. level nurse  praticioner.

       Inexperienced... Naive'.... Vulnerable.

Sarah McDonald, Social worker.

       Typical... Patent liar....

Colby "Now fired!" Wang, MD.

       Rogue... Dimwit... Unemployed.

Richard Holt, MD.

       Egoist... Run of the mill... Doofus.

Kristen Sparks, MD.

        Bitch.

                        

These thoughts to be elaborated upon at a later date. At our convenience. (Again, indy freelance journalism, gotta' love it.) Along with other thoughts, about other centrally involved figures, and so on.

paoloreed@gmail.com