The article below as well as the three-part series over at www.inlandpolitics.com scratch only the surface of medical atrocity and abuse at San Bernardino County’s only county-run hospital, Arrowhead Regional Medical Center (ARMC).  Unfortunately, I was very ill and unable to make the meeting with the good doctor and Jim as I would have liked have shared a few of my own war stories from my year of working at the facility and my few days as a patient to see if I could gain a better understanding of why the situation has become so dire.

Since leaving the facility on October 23, 2009, I have shared some inside information as to the inner workings of ARMC, but have done so with a sense of guilt.  When I was put to work there Mark Uffer and I made an agreement I would not burn ARMC on the blog.  And it was an agreement I kept until Mark dropped his side of the bargain and had me removed from ARMC.  At the time I was stunned at Uffer’s move, but as more and more information unfolds, the reasons for it also become more obvious.

Within a very short time after I started working for ARMC, I was approached by a group of employees who wanted to know if I had any connections with the media as they were scared and appalled by what was going on in the Behavioral Health unit.  As the Sentinel story below exposes, staff members became alarmed at the barbaric treatment of some patients, so much so, that they knew if exposed staff could lose their licenses and even face criminal prosecution.

Staff accused other staff members of falsifying records in order not to have to deal with difficult patients.  This was being done at the direction of DBH manager Paula Martin.  Patient records were being altered in order to justify keeping patients in restraints, in some cases up to four months.  Patients were not being bathed or properly cared for.  Records were, and apparently continue to be, falsified to keep 5150 patients hospitalized longer than allowed by law because certain staff members want to punish certain patients, especially those known as “frequent flyers” to discourage their return or from seeking help during subsequent crises.

My first mistake at ARMC was trusting that Mark Uffer would do the right thing.  After listening to employee concerns, I called Mark.  We have criticized Mark in the most serious of ways on this blog, but there are two things I would stake my life on about Mark and that is his love of animals and his love of ARMC.  Healthcare is a passion for Mark.  And my reasoning was that our county has had enough scandals and that if these accusations were accurate, he would want to address and correct them rather than allow scandal at his beloved hospital.

Mark listened and he had me speak with Patrick Petre about the complaints.  The complaints were investigated and the messengers were killed while the deeds were covered up.  And I put the first nail in my coffin at ARMC.