Complaint Review: Maricopa County Annex - PHOENIX Arizona

Lesley told me I better sleep with one eye open. She told me not to sleep in our room. She would mumble these things under her breath as she walkedby me. Like that she was going to dump water on me while I slept or that she was going to throw powder on my face after I fell asleep. When I went to my room to go to sleep something happened. I felt burning and sizzling on my feet ankles hands scalp back of legs my face. I got scared and went to sleep in the day room but it would happen there too.

I started to not be able to get any sleep. Some kinds of chemicals were getting either flung or sprayed or poured onto me. At first while out in the day room they would spray this Inscents brand air freshener. It is not safe for spraying on plastics only in air and for surely not on people. They would spray it on us while waiting in line for meds and patients would be given bottles of it by staff to clean tables with it.

While cleaning tables they would spray it onto certain patients including myself. A nurse named Theresa brought it in for the first time that it was used during my stay. I would try to sleep in the day room during the day my skin eyes throat - lungs would burn - My head would hurt. I would wrap up in blankets if I had them but they provided little protection. This was not the only substance being used though. Something more stronger was being used that left chemical burns on skin and made it hard to walk and hard to stand up even - and clouded your thinking. I would go back and forth between my room and the day room trying to find a place to be alone to get some sleep and fresh air.

But my room mates or others would always be not far behind. The staff turned the a/c down so low that it was very cold in December and windows were left open this seemed to make the effects worse.

At nights and near the end of my stay at Maricopa Annex I could hear the grinding of a blender or maybe a coffee grinder coming from the kitchen. I do not know what substances I was subjected to while at the Annex but it
burned my skin and throat and lungs. Made half of my face numb. Made my hands and feet not work properly. Made my thoughts slow and confused. They used something that smelled horrible. It would be flung or doused onto me while sleeping. My sheets or blanket would have long foam like strands melted into them. During meals people would walk by and spray something that smelled like fish onto my food and drinks. I was very hungry and thirsty so I would eat it and drink anyways. Then I would smell of fish. I would take 2 3 showers a day. And sometimes put back on the clothes I was already wearing. When I asked for bed linens shampoo lotion toothbrush socks underwears scrubs towels sometimes staff would just walk away. Or if it was a new staff they would ask me my name when I told them they would say just a minute and something would always be missing. No staff would give me underwears past that second day. The seal in the toothpaste they game me was
missing. The lotion and soap bottle was half empty. When I got into or out of the shower I would notice they did not give me a washcloth or socks or underwears. I used the lotion and it took the hair off of my legs.
 
One night I was watching television out in the day room. George {a patient} made a comment about how bad I smelled. I said I have no control over it they douse me with stuff. I said they all love it or else they wouldnt spray the s*** all night and day. Then we started talking and we sat and watched cartoons together. He let me listen to music on his headphones and that made me happy.  Then he said he was going to his room to go to sleep. I had already asked if I could sleep in the day room. George came back out and sat in a chair behind me. I could hear him moaning my name and doing something inappropriate. I opened my eyes and 2 night nurses Nikki and one other lady were facing both George and I. My back was to George but I knew full well what he was doing - moaning my name like that along with the other sounds.
 
I asked I demanded to know why the staff was just sitting there while George was breaking the rules. When I used an inappropriate word the head nurse came out of the nurses station and told me I should go to the time out room. I asked for how long she told me I should stay in for 1 hour. I was at first afraid of being locked in then they told me that I would not be locked in. While in the time out room I fell asleep. Then someone kept opening the door. Then my scalp and ankles and feets started sizzling like bacon. Then it hurt real bad and my mouth was sizzling inside and I spit on the floor. George was yelling {Someone a name I could not hear} just poured acid on Her face.

George yelled this a few times. My hands hurt pretty bad. So did my scalp. It all hurt really. Mostly my heart hurt. No one came to help. A long time later someone came to take my blood pressure I was afraid to let them touch me. I did not
consider any of them caregivers any longer. I told them as much too. 

Why did they care what my weight was or my blood pressure or temperature if they were going to burn me. I was heartbroken and confused. How many other patients are going through this   have been through this, only the ones on disability I wondered. Only the narcs like myself. Is it an initiation that we all go through. Is this the last night of
this. I would only hope.
 
I would meet with Dr. Sweeney the next day. I told him I received chemical burns during the night. He said to me he is not only a Doctor at the Hospital but The Medical Director. He said he hoped that they do things at night as same as in the daytime. I was starting to get the eeling Dr. Sweeney knew the night and day shifts were the same. A man sitting
to the left of Dr. Sweeney flipped me off as I explained how my night went.
 
I felt a hopelessness that words could never describe. Dr. Sweeney told me to use lotion on my burns.  On another visit with the doctor I could hear him approaching my room with one of his assistants. I could hear him say I should piss on her floor right before they entered my room. We talked a little he asked about my room mate I said everything was okay. We talked about my CPAP machine that I use at home I said it would help me very much to have it there with me. I asked if I would be able to care for it. I asked if my CPAP machine would be tampered with or destroyed the Doctor did not answer and his face went bright red. I said I guess I will leave it at home then. Usually hospitals supply CPAP machines patients usually just bring their own mask. He should have contacted my pulmonologist regarding the CPAP.

One day a man came down from a different unit. He was a patient and talking to staff I think he came down to use the bath tub. He had with him fresh scrubs to change into but he gave them to the staff and said these smell of piss because of the unit he was on and he asked for some fresh ones. He threw the scrubs to the staff member and the staff member went into the linen room and grabbed a fresh pair for him. Sometimes ifyou say stuff loud enough for all to hear you can get what you need but you pay for it later.
 
I have been burned threatened told by staff that I should have finished what I started {regarding my suicide}- flipped off given toothpaste and toothbrush that after you use it the skin on your lips turns bright red and bleeds and all around your lips turns bright red. I have been doused and sprayed with unknown substances and had the phones in the day room turned off when I went to call for help. Denied medical care when asked.

Made to wear dirty clothes. Given filthy scrubs and bed linens soaps and lotions toothbrushes and toothpastes that were tampered with. Had my food tampered with and given medications that were not meant for me. When getting
water from the only water dispenser available in the Dixie cups I would not even make it to my room before the water would start to drip right through the bottom of the cup. Once I noticed this was happening I stopped drinking and set
e cup with water on my nightstand. All of the water leaked right through the bottom of the cup onto the nightstand. On 2 occasions I was served ice cream with my meals. It was obvious the lid had been removed then replaced. The Styrofoam cup was melted around the edges and the ice cream was melted except in the very most center.
 
And witnessed others treated in similar ways. An older lady Kristie the bottom half of her face was so red by the end of my stay that she was to stay in her room whenever visitors came. I had burns on my neck that hurt all the way through to my throat. Nurses commented on the burn but I was offered no medical care. I also had burns on my hand and the backs of my legs and scalp. When I would go to West Yavapai Guidance Center the lady doing my intake inspected my scalp and noted dry skin. It was not dry skin though. My scalp is where I could hear sizzling like bacon most nights. My things were in a different place each time I left my room and came back. My court papers were
dog-eared so I would know that they had been read. Hairs were left on my toothbrush and other things of mine. Little seeds were spit into my stuff not sunflower seed shells but something similar. When I first arrived my vinyl
mattress was solid grey in color. After the first week it was covered in pink marks it had changed color from the chemicals I had been sprayed and / or doused with. 

The only way to get our clothes washed was to leave our clothes in a paper bag outside our door and the staff would wash them in the night. I left my clothes outside of my door like everyone else and when I got them back they were not only unwashed my clothes from home that my family had brought for me were smeared with a white substance that smelled horrible. And Lesley said she pissed in the slippers that my mom had brought in for me. Staff had stopped giving me socks after my 2nd day there so I just wore the same pair of socks until I could get a staff member to get me new ones. My feet were starting to swell and I am not sure why.

My family had brought sports bras and underwears and socks for me to wear but staff never gave them to me and when I asked for scrubs to change into before showering staff never gave me underwears. Or they would give me unwearable ones that smelled of fish.

The blood pressure cuff smelled of cloves or spearmint and left a red ring around my arm in the shape of the blood pressure cuff after staff took my blood pressure. The plastic thermometer covers smelled the same and left my mouth
foamy after taking my temperature.
 
One day a lady came into my room to do an EKG. She called me Savanah. There was a lot of times when people would call me Savanah I thought that was strange. When I had to lift my shirt she said to me, You are so thin why cant I be. I said to her because you dont live in a place like Auschwitz. She asked me, And you do? I said to her of course
not - I was only joking. And boy did I really get it after that. Michael a patient that makes up his own rap songs was rapping about Auschwitz until I got hauled off to WindSong.