Chart Note Rebuttal

Below is a rebuttal recently written by a patient at Elgin Mental Health Center, to correct a chart note by a Security Therapy Aide on March 1, 2016. This rebuttal illustrates the type of honest services fraud perpetrated by government employees in the forensic psychiatric system in Illinois.

Supposedly, a psychiatric chart is a "medical record" that doctors and courts can rely upon to evaluate the patient that it is written about. The truth is, anyone's psychiatric chart is full of nonsense and lies. But the "clinicians" who write psychiatric chart notes are not so stupid or incapable of observation that they just can't help putting inaccurate information in medical records.

Actually, the system is bent on control of "patients" -- not on helpful "treatment", not on community security, not on improved mental health. It is a system of slavery. The people who run it are plantation owners. Individuals like the STA who wrote the note complained of here, are overseers.

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CHART NOTE REBUTTAL FOR NOTE OF 3/1/16 AT 1445

I am rebutting the aforementioned chart note authored by STA Mike C. There are a few problems with this chart note and the related loss of privileges ("LOP") I was placed on.

Firstly, the note says that this was a late entry. The incident occurred around 8:30am, but the note was not made until just before the author went home at 2:45pm. 

Initially, I was accused of "exchanging" food with another patient, JR. The internal write-up reflects this, as it was referenced in the March staffing report, which also says I "exchanged" food with another patient. However, after Mike C. informed me that I was placed on LOP for the incident, I explained to him that I had received no food, so "exchange" was inaccurate.

Indeed, that morning, the non-vegetarian trays (I am a vegetarian) included cake, sausage and grits. Clearly I would not have taken any sausage, being a vegetarian, nor would I have taken cake (there's no point in exchanging cake for cake). One can imagine that if I had taken grits, a semi-liquid substance, Mike C. would have witnessed a very obvious passing of the food from one tray to the other. But he did not witness any such thing. He apparently realized this only after he had accused me of "exchanging" and put me on LOP for it.

Mike C. then changed his story. When he wrote the chart note hours later, it said "giving" instead of "exchanging" apparently to account for why I did not receive anything from JR. I should point out this is a mild instance of fraud. I was put on LOP for "exchanging", but when the author realized that accusation was not as plausible as he initially thought, he decided to change his story in my official record.

The truth is that Mike C. did not see anything, save perhaps some movement out of the corner of his eye. Indeed, JR took a piece of cake off my tray. But "giving" would have to be an active action which would involve me handing him the cake, or at least presenting my tray to him in a manner for easy access so he could take it. None of this occurred.

When Mike C. saw what he imagined to be a violation of EMHC expectations and/or customs (these cannot be rules, as rules are written and have prescribed punishments when they're broken -- unwritten rules with no prescribed punishments are merely customs), he did not bother to do any kind of inquiry into what actually happened. He never asked me if I gave JR the cake in exchange for something, or if JR took my cake. This is important. Mike C. had all the authority to inquire, but chose instead to simply accuse me of something and put me on LOP without any sort of procedural due process. 

The RN on the unit (an RN signs off on all LOPs) also did not bother to inquire. This is problematic. Just the previous day, another patient was put on LOP for stealing food from another patient's tray, and an inquiry was conducted on the spot to determine exactly what had occurred. 

If one patient steals food or strong-arms it from another patient, should both patients be punished? If the patient from whom food is taken does not consent, but ultimately doesn't care and doesn't report the incident, should both patients be punished? It seems to me that since this is merely an expectation or custom, EMHC staff ought to be redirecting patients before summarily putting them on LOP in an affront to due process. Why not just tell the patient to give the cake back? If he refuses, then perhaps apply disciplinary action. 

EMHC has consistently ignored my complaints about the LOP system, and my requests to fix it. Staff act arbitrarily and capriciously in violation of any consideration for due process. The giant problem of the LOP system is not known to courts or independent examiners, so patients get framed as bad patients. In fact, the LOP system and non-standardized procedures create records to be used against patients in court. Why should patients have to bear a burden to prove false negative reports, which result from the bad LOP system?

Finally, I would like to point out that Program Director Jeff Pharis asked the Consumer Council to come up with a proposal to revise the LOP system, acknowledging that it needed to be fixed. I wrote an eight-page proposal for a brand new LOP system, highlighting all the numerous problems and solutions to them. All the patients on the Consumer Council support this proposal, which was submitted to Jeff Pharis in January, 2016. Two months later, Pharis has not even read it, let alone given any feedback.

Were we told to come up with this proposal just to make us think EMHC was finally ready to revise this problematic LOP system? I believe that the LOP I was handed on 3/1/16, violated my due process rights. It was an arbitrary action by Mike C.

(Patient S.)
3/23/16