Gus stated his complaints in staffing this afternoon about, inter alia, Drs. Sharpe and Meyers threatening him with extended confinement for making "untrue" complaints. Dr. Sharpe deflected this accusation, but he (conspicuously) did not deny it. It was very clear to me that Gus' original version of the meeting on January 11 was probably quite accurate. And although I was unable to add this in the conversation, the fact is, nobody ever identified exactly what was untrue in any of Gus' written complaints.
After some back-and-forth discussion and argument about who was lying and who was only trying to help people get better from their mental illness, I explained to the team that it seemed to me Dr. Sharpe was unwilling to actually say he wouldn't extend Gus' confinement for complaining too much, or that he never threatened Gus, or never said the words which Gus accused him of saying. (See, my recent earlier article.)
I tried repeatedly to insist: this is Gus' accusation against you, Dr. Sharpe -- do you deny it? He wouldn't say he denied it, or even that he didn't remember for sure. His only statement was that he would recommend a conditional release when he felt it was clinically appropriate, that was his job. That's about like asking a weatherman if it will rain tomorrow, and having him say he will definitely report on weather conditions. Sharpe also actually tried to relate Gus' eligibility for release to whether he uses the correct number of salt packets in the cafeteria, or some such ridiculous deflection.
To me this was a dead giveaway: Sharpe (and Meyers) absolutely did threaten Gus on January 11. After the fact they knew it was wrong, they realized they could actually get in trouble for mental abuse, so in today's staffing they lied about it or refused to answer the accusation.
They also complained about the staffing, or objected to me being angry in the staffing. I was angry, because these people were arrogantly lying about my client and expecting to get away with it! I will come to as many staffings as I can, and when the staff lie, I might get angry, and call them liars as I see them.
No comments:
Post a Comment