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17 August 1999 
blacking out page / due process /patients' rights pages
"Blacked out" the entry pages to the mental health section. Created two new pages, oner which shall become the main page to this section, Patients' Rights which includes the text to the Connecticut DMHAS Patients' Rights poster. It's public information, and (besides) I authored it anyway The next page added is one on Due Process and the DMHAS patient grievance process 
5 August 1999
page updates / interviews redux / hospital photo project
Page Updates: Finally added a new page on patients' rights. Ironic it comes online just as New York State passes an outpatient commitment law. Can't understand how people just don't understand that if you coerce people into receiving care, the will naturally resist. The other part to this matter is that passage of such laws is a further encroachemnt of personal liberties. My supposition is that no one "sane" (that is, undiagnosed or unarrested) person will even question the passage of such draconian law until they are subjected to its provisions. Then it will be too late. Interviews We ended up interviewing four candidates. All while males in their 40s or 50s. One seemed entirely too glib and ready to answer however he felt his audience would agree to. Another was nice, but seemed very inexperienced. A third, his language filled with doctrinaire "code words" -scary. The outcome remains to be seen. hospital photo project Chad arrived for another weekend of picture taking. We were unable to get clearance in time for the weekend so we went, instead, to Norwich Hospital. Now completely closed, the grounds are easy to access and the opportunity to take photos was rich. Sure would liek to see what was inside the buidlings.
16 July 1999
interviews / Satisfaction surveys / Restraint & Seclusion
There's been a search for hiring someone from outside the system to work as General Psyche Division's Director. The push has been strong to put the new applicant through a series of "stress interviews." Each applicant to subjected to a series of group interviews. Members of patient council and advocates have been able to participate in the interview process. We have a half dozen questions we ask, all pretty much the same questions. So far two have been interviewed. Satisfaction Surveys We've been doing these again. First time in 6 months. Patient perception is that "...they were just done..." Why do it again so soon? My own take on this is that if you want to get a sense of the patient satisfaction level is, then come to a patient meeting or (better yet) come hang out on the wards/units and talk with people. You'll get a good sense of how people feel about things. HCFA [that's the Health Care Financing Administration folks]has come up with new regulations on the use of restraint and seclusion (published in the Federal Register [USA] July 6, 1999) which ostensibly make this method of intervention more difficult to implement but still leave much room for chemical restaint use The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law has more information about the particulars of these new regulations. HCFA still has an open comments time window for folks to comment on this new regulation. As was said on one of the newsgroups I read "...folks are encouraged to submit comments on the restraint and seclusion standards as per the following. Comment date: Comments on 42 CFR 482.13(e) (Standard: Restraint for acute medical and surgical care) and (f) (Standard: Seclusion and restraint for behavior management) will be considered if we receive them at the appropriate address as provided in the ADDRESSES section, no later than 5 p.m. on August 31, 1999. We will not consider comments on provisions of the regulation that remain unchanged from the December 19, 1997 proposed rule or on provisions that were changed based on our consideration of public comments. ADDRESSES: Mail comments (an original and three copies) to the following address: Health Care Financing Administration, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: HCFA-3018-IFC, P.O. Box 7517, Baltimore, MD 21207-0517. Room 443-G, Hubert Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC 20201, or Room C5-16-03, 7500 Security Boulevard, Baltimore, MD 21244-1850 Because of staffing and resource limitations, we cannot accept comments by facsimile (FAX) transmission. In commenting, please refer to file code HCFA-3018-IFC. Comments received timely will be available for public inspection as they are received generally beginning approximately 3 weeks after publication of a document, in Room 443-G of the Department's offices at 200 Independence Avenue, SW., Washington, DC, on Monday through Friday of each week from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. (phone: (202) 690-7890). FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Monique Howard, OTR (410-786-3869); Julie Moyers (410-786-6772); Anita Panicker, RN, LCSW (410-786-5646); or Rachael Weinstein, RN (410-786-6775).
10 June 1999
Updates / Mental Health Conference at the White House
After some preliminary reports, it's enough to one opposed to forced treatment, to just give it up. The Torrey people (and their friends) have done their propaganda work well. Even psychiatrists at the conference were taken aback by the aggressively pro-forced treatment stance (and anti-service recipient; even forget about recovery and self help!), that a few spoke out against the perspectives dominant at the conference.
20 May 1999
Memorial Service at CVH
Yesterday was particularly psychically grueling. Went to the memorial service at CVH's pauper's cemetery. This is a site where over 1,600 souls were buried in gravesites that are identified only by numbers. Slightly under 100 of us went to pay respects while the names, ages and dates of death were read of some who have been interred there. The Hartford Courant actually published a nice article on the ceremony.
16 May 1999
Respite / Updates / Welcome early summer
Had a much welcome respite from work and the "news" with a visit to New hampshire with my partner at his brother's house. Cool, clear weather, mountain and lake views; did a humorous pen & ink sketch of a view out the window from the bathtub. On a serious note: No progress on Tim's death in the hands of CT DOC. Although there was a flurry of news about a teenager in Hartford allegedly killed by police, the Hartford Courant is silent about Tim. Things like this make the workplace exhausting.
29 april 1999
Memorial services in Connecticut
Today was a real kicker, emotionally. Two different memorial services. One
for a man who must remain unidentified. His a demise from a
longstanding medical condition resulting in kidney failure. The second for a young man -much younger-
who died under inconscionable circumstances.
Dead~ after having been forcibly drugged and left for two hours in
restraints in a prison cell in Hartford Correctional Ctr. So far, no outcry anything like the Elmcrest restraint death has been forthcoming. ....(except - maybe - a handful of bureaucrats suddenly fussing about a potential Public Image mess and going into the 'oh-Chit!-Now-what'll-we-do?' operational mode. So what do we do about it? This tragic and senseless death. Do we criminalize the keepers? those who last had him under their charge? ... Or shall we excoriate those who sent them to prison in the first place? Or maybe he should be demonized as a cheap means of rationalizing away the loss? For he was ~after all~ a troubled soul during his brief lifetime. Yes, he did things that got him in and out of many complicated entangelments with different institutional systems. Eventually, he lashed out sufficiently to have broken someone's jaw ~its all now public record -that part of the ends of his life. .... ..But what of that now? His problem was that he was lost and troubled and alone and so frieghtened -at times that he did lash out on occsional uncontrollably. That- and the dismissive and uncaring attitude of a few of his treaters or handlers (call them what you may) Society being what it is, there are supposedly places for souls such as his whose lives are so troubled they end up in the treatment system more often than the criminal system. Ironically, -no perversely- for folks in such a state, society does demonize them already. That's not treatment folks (as in a caring -and sincere (however sometimes misguided)set of actions and efforts believed to be helpful or "therapeutic"] No folks, that's THE treatment. Plain and simple Now, ~as with another death (some years ago) of which I wrote in a past journal~ I sit in turnmoil wondering what might have been done differently to have prevented this outrade and tragedy. And I keep coming back to the possiblity that -in part at very least- that we have a social ethic in society that considers it acceptable to regard some people as being less valuable (and less valued) in society. People then behave accordingly. In this man's case, this ethic -quite common in the criminal/correctional system (but hardly an exclusive attitude, just easier to see when there). this ethic, led to his death. ....his murder. (it is nothing less than that). I have no solutions here. It is not something that any one person can turn around. Just giving witness for the moment. That's all for today.
28 april 1999
how'd things go yesterday?
Well, opening up the debate about smokers' rights will prove interesting. Like I said before,
I'm not a smoker myself but feel that people who do smoke have a right so to do.
(Maybe I'd do better at getting this issue resolved if I was speaking to people
in a third world country, where the tobacco industry can compete more
freely against cocaine and heroin drug lords)More interesting is the debate in the Ethics cmte on whether or not it is an ethical issue for a therapist to serve as forensics expert against his or her own patient. Some, apparently, think not. Later in the day, I watched a woman who was supposed to be hearing about patients' rights working on old Sunday NY Times crossword puzzles. I don't expect a good grade from her on my presentation, but then again, I can see clearly why so many patients complain when she is assigned to them (I'm reluctant to say she "works with them" -for she more often sits around with other staff gossiping).
what's up today?
Work day. A long one. 0900 to 2000 hours 5th time zone. Have to go defend the rights
of smokers today -ironic considering I'm a non-smoker (well, except for the
occasional cigar). Trying to get long term residents tax free smokes.Also gotta take a cat with a broken leg to the vet.
23 april 1999 what's up with the hospital photo shoot?
I've escorted Chad Kleitsch through several unused buildings on the
CVH campus twice now; once in mid-March, and just last weekend. I took over
300 photos myself, but I'm a focus-and-click camera user. Chad is more artful.
He will set up a shot, wait until the lighting is just right, and then we
might sit around for 15 minutes waiting for the exposure to finish.
He took about 30 pictures over a two day period. When he's completed his work,
he's promised that I can upload some of the shots for viewing, but that won't be
until some time in late May 1999.
and what about the cvh page?
It's pretty straightforward, actually. Presenting information that the hospital
already used in an informational brochure. As of today, there are three jump
links from the main page. The first is Willis Royle Library, the so-called
patient library at CVH. This is, essentially, just a bunch of links that people
new to using the Internet can go to to get their surfing feet wet (so to speak).
The second is to a "Spanish Initiatives" page, written by Bob Chase, a clinical
social worker at CVH and one of the staff to our Hispanic program. The third
-an augmented links page built upon the Gom'mint page on my page with additions
found online by my library colleagues (or cohorts) Storm and Heather.
Tell the truth, I think it will be intriguing to see how this one evolves away
from the one I initially developed.
so that's it? some single paged
promo you probably didn't even write? some advocate you are!
Hold on there pal!
The cover page has to pass muster and -as an official looking page, one
might expect it would be pretty banal.The next stage is to add more overtly advocacy materials. I've plans to put the advocacy materials I've written for work online. Initially in HTML, later in Adobe Acrobat format. The first of these -the easiest to transfer into HTML- will be a summary of patients' rights protected according to the Connecticut General Statutes (CGS) 17a-540 through 17a-550. Apart from that, I'll probably scan Dr. Gladlee's Vacation Retreat poster and put it up. uhh! who the hell is
Dr. Gladlee?
Dr. Gladlee was born out of some good natured scheming between my dear friend Lorraine
and I when we worked at a small advocacy agency known as Connecticut Self Advocates
for Mental Health. [Its acronym was CSAMH, and people referred to us as "ka-zam!"]
Dr. Gladlee was our consulting psychiatrist, and is reputed to have already written
some parts of the DSM-V (ask me if you don't know what this is). He is also a bear.
I think he got his doctoral degree from some college in Guyana.
Catch you on the rebound! ~Will Brady |
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This website is maintained by Will Brady / wbrady@connix.com / Last update: 14 August 1999
This website is maintained by Will Brady / wbrady@connix.com / Last update: 14 August 1999