Just for example, there's Joe Basso, Social Worker II. Joe spent months getting my guy Gus' pass packet together. For most of that time, he just kept saying it was "with the court," or "with the Administration," but it was obvious that Joe had no clue where the packet actually was, it was lost. Vik Gill stood up for Joe, or in fact covered up for him, by coaching him on how to finish the packet. Gus finally got his passes, although nobody knew the court had approved them and Gus was unable to use them for a full month (maybe two) after the judge would have expected his order to be complied with.
I'm not sure why Vik Gill wants to keep Joe around, unless it's because nobody else wants to work on low functioning N Unit, and Vik doesn't want to be any shorter on staff than he already is. He doesn't want to be stuck as the last person of authority on crashing-and-burning N Unit. Dr. Nidea, the unit medical doctor, recently quit; and Dr. Ronett the psychologist is on her way out the door, too. Nobody gets psychotherapy at EMHC anymore; but that's true on all the other IDHS plantations, too.
The Nurse-Manager for M and N units is Teresa Niacua (my spelling may be wrong). Hers is a fairly high position, she basically has an administrative title. But after less than a year on the job, it's clear that Teresa is as dumb as rock, just like Joe "Basalt" Basso. Gus has asked for her help with problems of normal services that Joe is unwilling or too dumb to perform, like making copies of documents, obtaining forms, or getting a memo to security to enable a monthly staffing in the forensic program building legal conference room. These are things social workers are supposed to do for patients. But Teresa can't do them either, she just protests that she'll send it back to the incompetent social worker. Joe would no doubt say (with Vik Gill's backing) that he works really, really hard for all those patients assigned to him. (He has two besides Gus.) In any event, Joe is incompetent at his job, Teresa is incompetent at hers, and the whole clinical unit is dysfunctional. Nobody helps anyone with anything (especially "mental illness"); they just try to avoid trouble, which is a sure way to guarantee trouble will come.
Part of the problem is simple corruption, which comes from low morale, which comes from incompetence. Gus hates the corruption, and all the corrupt staff hate him for seeing it at all. Rules against contraband are broken all the time. One patient has markers which are banned: a green one was found just lying on the floor recently, and a new social worker made a big display of dramatically asking, "Which patient had this?!" although she clearly already knew. That new social worker covers over the window in her office door with some opaque plastic so no one can tell when she's in there. She's following a long line of rule breakers in this, including social worker Xiaomara (who quit) and social worker She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named (who went to prison). Drs. Ronett and Gill are also aware of patients who have banned items (laptops with bluetooth wifi, let alone large markers) on the unit, but they never report it or investigate. Staff frequently cheat on sign-in rules and hours, but nobody cares.
I attended Gus' monthly staffing today, and I asked the treatment team why they are unable to perform the most basic administrative functions. Joe Basalt just stared down at the table. He needs a haircut and looks stoned. Gill stood up the whole time because he can't easily sit right now, with some back or shoulder injury. What a motley crew! But other units are just as bad, and some people are even worse.
I attended three more staffings today, all for Hartman Unit patients. The first one featured none other than Richard Malis-with-malice, who had absolutely no patience with my mild sarcasm, about how therapy groups at EMHC seem to not be important for any purpose of helping patients, but only for making the staff who run them look good. The psychologist in the room had just told the patient that his attendance was needed in her therapy group precisely because almost no one else comes to it. I thought that was just too funny to not comment on. But Malis-with-malice got up and walked out, like some kind of drama queen, ending the staffing to "protest" my disrespect.
But I do honestly disrespect these people who, with all their self-important, arrogant pretext, try to tell their slaves that they, as "experts" alone know what is best for "recovery" from the invented "mental illness" myths. Almost every psychiatric slave I've ever worked for in the past two+ decades is smarter than Dr. Malis-with-malice, who is actually a bad and dishonest man, or Joe "dumb as basalt" Basso, who might just want to get high.
Then there's Rose, my Hartman Unit social worker friend who loves old rock'n'roll, and was so caring today as to ask about the welfare of a patient who recently Thiem'd out.
Rose is the best, and all is not lost.
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