131,400 hours (15 years but it’s actually longer) is how long a Spanish speaking man has been kept in locked seclusion except for visits with his family outside the institution of Western State Hospital because the director of Western State Hospital said in a memo that it was time to “cut our losses” in 1993 and abandoned this patient, this human being, this man, to a lifetime of being alone without even treatment in his native language and with his food shoved through a slot in the door. He used to be in 24/7 walking restraints until the Department of Justice came into Western State Hospital in the late ’90’s. He has survived colon cancer and the removal of all his teeth but Western State Hospital refuses to provide him with dentures and incredibly the Local Human Rights Committee sided with the Hospital on saying the hospital was not obligated to provide dentures to their patient who has no way to get them on his own and has been under their care for close to 20 years. He has been so depressed by his isolation that his sister reports at times he doesn’t want to live. But Western State Hospital, the Inspector General’s Office and Commissioner Reinhard still call this the “least restrictive treatment environment” for Mr. C.C. This is not “treatment”, this is punishment and giving up on treatment for the convenience of the hospital and its staff.
On top of what has happened to Mr. C.C. all these years, equally disturbing is what has happened to the culture of the employees and patients at Western State due to his well known isolation–his cell is on a ward with other patients who know all about him. At one time other patients threw dirt on Mr. C.C. in his tiny locked outside area off his cell. Former patients have been brainwashed into believing that this is C.C.’s fault and that the hospital is keeping him out of jail and doing him a favor or that C.C. wants to be treated like this. Staff has become so defensive that they make up stories about C.C. and share them with new staff to reinforce their belief they are doing nothing wrong. When staff and outside monitors of human rights look at other human rights violations at Western and elsewhere, every other violation seems minor and the gut reaction of “this is wrong” is not there to spur action. Of course compared to this horrible violation of human dignity a restraint chair seems like nothing and use of restraints for days past the allowed federal guidelines seems just fine and a Western State psychiatrist has even made a private video which he shows in talks of a Western patient saying that his illegally long stay in restraints was good for him! Well why not? Once staff have to adapt to an ongoing rights violation to stay in their job, their moral compass becomes skewed.
Tell Commissioner Reinhard and Governor Kaine to stop this inhumane situation now!
