PhilosophyPodcasts.Org

Jan 9, 2025

See https/://CorriganIPU.com for updates on Human Rights Complaint submitted to Mass DMV regarding alleged human rights violations in this Fall River, MA facility.

Corrigan IPU patients deserve a real, substantive right to access the outdoors.

It is gross really to see the Corrigan IPU patients staying inside day after day, week after week, and in some cases month after month.  And it is still more alarming when Corrigan staff blithely and complacently point to the four times a day when a minority subset of patients (youthful patients) can go outside.  (Roughly 25% to 50% of patients [depending on the patients on unit at a particular time) can access the outdoors because, for example, they do not suffer neither obesit], paranoia exacerbated in groups, social anxiety, catatonia, or dementia, and do not present fall risks).  For the other patients (the majority [especially when weighted by length of stay]). they are inside constantly, and it is disgusting to see.  Their skin can be as white as white-out.  The outdoors breaks are valued by the employees, but the employees aren't able to extend the courtesy to their fellow humans. 

It is a case of domination of the medical professionals over the neurodiverse. Some Corrigan staff no doubt get off on this.  Most would get off on it indirectly and subliminally.  Maybe a few get off on it consciously and directly. 

On the other hand, there is also another factor at play: the way we can get used to things that are odious, simply because others aren't clamoring about it, and we simply stop paying attention.  If you went to Corrigan IPU, you would be appalled by the majority of patients who never go outside.  But I venture if you shunned it for a year or so, you would eventually get used to it.  You would be able subconsciously to suppress how disgusting it is for these humans (who happen to be patients) to be tortured by not having a real substantive, right of access to the outside. How does this happen?  Rousseau in his Confessions said it was human nature. 

“I have derived an important moral principle, perhaps the only one of any real practical use, which is that we should avoid situations that bring our duty into conflict with our interests … since I am certain that in such situations, … we will sooner or later weaken, without noticing it, and become unjust and wicked in deed without having ceased to be just and good in spirit” 

I first raised this issue with Corrigan in October 2024 to Larry Weiner who is the Director of Human Rights at Corrigan.  He simply ignored me.  Danielle Keogh, LICSW, actively resisted my efforts.  I then decided to make a formal Human RIghts Complaint.  I assumed this would get a response.  However no one from Corrigan would even acknowledge they received it.  I sent it to:

Jose Afonso ("provider" where a "provider" is sometimes called a "prescriber". It is essentially someone who can prescribe, so it is a nurse practitioner, DO, etc.)

Maxwell I. Mayer (provider)

Larry Weiner

and Jeanne Crespi, social worker.

Nb: I have invited each of these people to come on to this podcast or contact me in writing to correct me where I am wrong. 

To work at Corrigan you need to develop the ability to shun. You shun recognition of how many patients don't get to go outside.  You shun the nausea you probably had when you first saw this.  You also learn, it seems, to shun other people, people such as me who are raising the issue.  A social worker or mental-health counselor would in fact claim that such shunning constituted "self care" or "an adaptive coping mechanism."

Until they correct me, I would attribute Afonso and Mayer's non-response to their occupational or characterological contrariness and sense of superiority.  They are "providers."  They also have a vested interest (which is subliminal [see Rousseau]) as they possess the big swinging dicks at Corrigan IPU, are used to being kowtowed to, and, on information and belief, seem to use the Corrigan IPU as the IPU for their personal (presumably middle-class, white) patients.  (The nurses will hold a bed open when they know that one of the providers' patients will soon be needing a bed.  On information and belief, they also keep their own patients there longer ceteris paribus. 

Also as the golden goose: Corrigan IPU apparently requires an MD be on call all the time in case of an admission. 

The upshot is that it is good to have one of them as a provider.  From the perspective of their patients' families, keeping this small (16-bed) unit open is a godsend.  It only starts to look sketchy when you think of the anonymous payers of taxes and insurance premia.

Why did I send it to Jeanne Crespi?  She is the interim "Person in Charge," meaning she is the person you are supposed to contact with a Human Rights Complaint.  It was thus quite surprising to me that neither she nor Larry Weiner even acknowledged my Complaint, or were willing to indicate to me that my Complaint would be taken seriously.  I mean: that is one of their official, professional duties, as the Human Rights Officer and Person in Charge.

In each case I was specifically--and increasingly plaintively--asking that they person please acknowledge receiving my Complaint, as a matter of simple courtesy.  

To no avail.  Repeatedly shunned, I felt myself in full Karen mode.  I went up the chain of command until, finally, I reached Star Sims, JD, Director of Human Rights for all of DMH.  I appreciate attorney Sims responding quickly and professionally, acknowledging receipt of my complaint. 

Below are:

(I) my exchange with Attorney Sims

(II) timeline dates, factoids, and gossip mentioned in the podcast

(III) my letters to Corrigan staff (each of which was met with the silent treatment) 

(I) my exchange with Attorney Sims

(II) timeline dates, factoids, and gossip mentioned in the podcast

We start with the Kennedy Administration Mental Health Centers Act. The first MHC in the state was in Lowell, and the second was the Fall River Mental Health Center.  It started out in 1961 as an annex of Taunton State Hospital and was located within Charlton (then known as Union) hospital.  In August 1962, it moved to a remodeled laundry building at 680 Maple St., adjacent to its future location on Hillside Ave, which was then under construction. The Hillside Ave building originally had a 40 bed IPU on the top floor. It was renamed after a cardiologist, Dr. John C. Corrigan, in 1970.

From 1992 to 1995, the Weld administration attempted unsuccessfully to privatize Corrigan.  In 1992, most Emergency Services provision was privatized in the state, but Corrigan and Pocasset remained under DMH control. 

2010 press reports indicated that a closure of Corrigan was prevented by the efforts of legislator David B. Sullivan, who started his career as a social worker at Corrigan. It was said then that 16 beds would be lost.  I infer that the reduction to 16 beds occurred prior to 2010.

2015 Southcoast Behavioral in Dartmouth opened as a joint effort of South Coast Health and Acadia Healthcare of Franklin Tennessee.  It opened as a 77,000 square foot, 5-unit hospital with 24 beds per unit. Thus, initially, it had 120 beds.  It has since opened three more units. Thus, it is up to 192 beds. As noted in the podcast, what is striking is to compare the professional staff at Southcoast Behavioral (with its 200 patients) compared to 16-bed (!) Corrigan.  Southcoast Behavioral no doubt has many more techs than Corrigan IPU, but it has far fewer techs per bed. It is run entirely by nurses.  That is, nurses do all the work, compared with Corrigan which has redundancy between OT, Social work and the nursing staff.  Even the OT staff at Corrigan feel the need to insert themselves into treatment planning generally (not simply with respect to OT).  Southcoast Behavioral is built ranch-style, we might say.  Every unit has direct same-floor access to the outside.  It is in this respect much more humane than Corrigan.

It also pays market wages and salaries, compared to Corrigan which pays labor-market rents to its unionized, public-sector workforce.  That might sound like a good thing, but with labor-market rents comes discrimination.  The Corrigan professional staff has zero African Americans.  The Corrigan blue-collar staff is entirely white and male at the higher pay grades.  There are a handfull of African Americans on the lowest end of the payscale.  

On January 7, 2015, the Fresh Air law (S.911, H.3805) was signed by Gov. Deval Patrick. [See https://malegislature.gov/Bills/188/H3804 ] At the time, it was estimated that 25 to 30 percent of psychiatric hospitals would be unable to pass even the 2016 regulations which DMH promposed to operationalize the law.  However those hospitals which were unable to comply were required to provide a plan to DMH indicating how they would remedy the situation.  It is now 10 years later, and Corrigan has still not provided meaningful outdoors access to its most physically and mentally compromised patients.  (It offers only nominal outdoor access.  These are taken advantage of by its youthful patients and enjoyed also by the staff.  Nothing wrong with that, but what about the compromised patients?) It is this plan that I have been trying to get.  I originally asked Larry Weiner for it in 2024.  He shunned the entire topic.

2017 Emergency Services at Corrigan were privatized resulting in savings of $6.4 million in the first year alone without a reduction in the level of services. Unlike the early 1990s, employees did not succesfully organize resistance to the move. 

Kennard C. Kobrin was a psychiatrist at Corrigan until 1998. His background was in San Francisco, not Hollywood. He was married to the actress Joanna Cassidy, who described Kobrin as a "wonderful duality," "with doctors on one side and Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and people who were selling clothes to Jefferson Airplane on the other." https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/1999/04/11/trying-dr-kobrin/50529926007/

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(III) my letters to Corrigan staff (each of which was met with the silent treatment) 

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