TO:
Sharon Fishman, 6040 Southport Drive, Bethesda, MD 301-493-4200
cc:
Dr. Mariam Parveen and therapist Paula Weiss
FROM:
Linda Leonard, 14528 Banquo Terrace, Silver Spring, MD
RE:
For Mentally Ill Patients who cannot speak up for themselves
March
14, 2015
Dear
Ms. Fishman,
I
wrote much of the following while it was happening but felt too beat
down, too tired to continue writing the ongoing abuse of clients by
some Bel Pre cluster staff including supervisor, Keith Ellis.
I
have been trying to continue and complete this complaint which is why
some of the tenses are inconsistent but I feel I need to let you know
as soon as possible about what has been happening over the past 3
years and getting worse by Peppertree/Bel Pre cluster at St. Luke'
House/Threshold/Cornerstone - Montgomery as the three names for this
clinic and residential program.
To
King David, I Chronicles Chapter 17 verse 7
Now
therefore thus shalt thou say unto My
servant David,
thus
saith
the
LORD of hosts.
I
took thee from the sheepcote,
even
from following the sheep,
that
thou shouldest be ruler over my people Israel:
People
Not Sheeple
God
said I
will judge between cattle and cattle in
the
Book of Isaiah
If
the king is corrupt, all the people in the kingdom shall be corrupt.
He
did not mean that
people should be treated as cattle for
the profit and amusement of those appointed to care for them but is
referring to the
responsiblity required of those in authority.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTER
KEITH
ELLIS BECAME
SUPERVISOR IN OCTOBER 2014
PART
I
Keith
Ellis
was Assistant Supervisor before that and came to Bel Pre about 3
years ago with the merger with Threshold
and
some of the good RCs who really cared about clients from
Peppertree/Bel
Pre like
the old Jessica were fired to make room for other employees from
Threshold.
It's
been over three years since Keith Ellis has been at SLH/Cornerstone
and especially in the past year his treatment of me and other clients
has been like a neverending nightmare, it is finally time for me to
write a complaint get the truth in play and relief from this abuse of
power.
d
Keisha
Johnson and
Nikki
Lak who
started around the same time
were
also excellent caring, competent RCs. October 2014, at the going
away party, which was also a party for those with birthdays in
October, when Arlene Gomez left, a client sitting on the couch with
me stated to Arlene and Keith, who was standing trying to cover his
rejoicing at being made supervisor at Arlene's and the clients'
expense, with an edge in his voice said to Keith, "Thank
you for letting clients know Arlene is leaving, a number of RCs have
left recently and clients
have not been informed."
I
did not know Nikki and Keisha had left, always before even if someone
were let go, they would stay for a week or so and say good-bye to
clients. Arlene was acting a good sport but she was obviously upset,
I do not believe she resigned. Christina
Taylor,
my RC of 2 years who had been at SLH/Cornerstone for 4 years and who
definitely did not get along with Keith or his detrimental decisions
about clients though she didn't say much told me the reason why
Arlene was taking so long to take up her responsibilities when she
was first hired is that Arlene
Gomez was
hired through an ad in the Washington Post, lived in Pennsylvania and
was packing to move and close or sell her house.
Arlene
lasted less than a year and did have a problem with controlling staff
but she was an extremely kind woman and said at the party that she
would miss all the clients she had gotten to know so well from them
visiting her in her office each morning.
I
doubt if Keith Ellis has the time or inclination for talking to
clients to help them. Debbie
Davis complained
the Keith and other staff said terrible things about clients. She
told me this three times, the first time she witnessed the extreme
gossip behind their back, especially of a tall, heavy, blhong young
man and was outraged when Keith started gossiping and making
fun of clients in front of them with
his
staff and Debbie Davis would say repeatedly,
"if
they
don't want to work with people like us they should get a job doing
something else."
Debbie
Davis told me that she repeated this to her therapist, Leah
Cooperman,
who told Debbie that she had been hearing bad things about Keith from
other clients and that Keith's playing a game of keep-away
with
Debbie's necessary paperwork, Leah said, "I
AM GOING TO PUT A STOP TO THIS." and
Shatara and Keith began to try to obtain the paperwork for Debbie
instead of telling her that she owed Cornerstone $2,000 and would not
be allowed to leave until she had paid it off, and other ridiculous
games, which I know all too well, not to give Debbie her moving in
paperwork so she could leave Cornerstone, Debbie stated from the
first hour she moved in and multiple times every day she was here
that she wanted to move out and she also needed the paperwork for
other official things.
Some
of Keith's other games included telling Debbie she would not be given
her paperwork or allowed to leave the residential program until she
started going to the events and classes at Bel
Pre,
several of the RCs complimented Debbie on her participating in some
of the classes in front of me and Debbie reminded me of this a number
of times. Debbie, who was in an acute manic phase when she first
walked in the door
in November 2014,
became even more constantly ballistic and screaming and screaming at
me and incessantly into her cell phone
*********************
so
loud that my job coach and I sitting downstairs sitting close to each
other in from of Vanessa's laptop could not do our work because
of being drowned out by Debbie who was upstairs in her bedroom. I am
sure Vanessa
Martinez will
testify to Debbie screaming the house down at our
job coach meetings.
The first time Debbie did this Vanessa kept asking me how
many people were upstairs,
I repeated again and again that it was only Debbie and Vanessa said
it sounded like there were at least two people screaming the house
down upstairs Debbie talks and screams so fast. And I told Vanessa it
was like this 24/7 the screaming at the top of her lungs and
galloping up and down the stairs and all around all three stories
like the townhouse was way too small for her and I could barely hold
on to my stability-sanity much less do the work for the job coach
program.
*********************
at
the bald face lies of Keith and sometimes Shatara that she refused to
go to the events. The only event Keith hosts is called GAMES
and Debbie
noted that as did I and
she stated repeatedly about Keith
prediliction for other more destructive games with clients in
terms that I cannot repeat and punctuated repeatedly with the f-word
several times a sentence which was her usual communication style but
even faster and worse. Debbie was hard enough to be around in her
manic phase even before Keith started these games and she would not
leave me alone in my bedroom or while trying to work on my computer
and art for repeating again and again blow by blow descriptions of
her arguments on the phone with Keith while
bouncing off the walls and charging at me and
calling
Social Services about holding back our checks and
her former RC and other staff at Braddock Road and her large family
in
hysterical terms which caused
me to have almost constant panic attacks.
Debbie
Davis was particularly outraged at Keith
making fun of another client called
Linda
who very frail, tiny and thin with a sweet face, long silver hair but
a huge bald spot over most of the back of her head, is bent over from
extreme arthritis in her shoulders and has trouble walking, Keith
did this twice when Debbie was in the office.
She said the last time Keith was helping Linda to walk but was
making faces above her head and the RCs and Keith were laughing at
Linda. From my personal experiences with Keith and from what I saw
done to Betty
Levy by
Keith and Shatara and Ana
Reyes and
others, I can certainly believe it and verify the insulting and
abusive way patients are treated as if we are not even remotely human
and have no power. Mental Health patients do not have any power if
grievances and complaints are not handled in a timely manner before
it gets this bad.
I
think Linda
has trouble washing her hair and is not being given help by the RCs
or referred to
nurses aides who could help her wash her hair and treat the huge bald
spot which looks crusted.
I
had to meet with Nurse
Josephine Marshall in
Keith's office in December for an update
short intake and
she
was polite but gave
me the short shrift when I tried to talk about ongoing problems with
my thyroid, arthritis, cortisone shots and rhematism and
Linda
saw her before me but I do not believe that Ms. Marshall did anything
to help Linda, these
meetings were just for more funding for the Home
Health Group getting
paid by Cornerstone
for
God knows what.
A
few days after the October GOING
AWAY PARTY for
Arlene Gomez, when my then RC David
Minestone had
me sign on the computer my
treatment plan, WHICH WE HAD NOT
WORKED ON TOGETHER and
which took me months of asking Keith and later RC Anna
Bikakis for
a copy of, Keith was rejoicing telling people not to bother him while
he was working on the computer to make sure he got his new Supervisor
salary right away, he had a lot of problems with doing this and
Meghan
Grout kept
teasing and complimenting Keith on being the
"OVERLORD."
At
this time, Keith utterly ignored my questions about
Josephine Marshall being listed on the first page as one of my
providers and I asked him if
she was listed as one of my providers, why he would not give me a
contact number for her. David's
desk is right by the computer Keith was working on for his new
Supervisor salary.
-----------------------------------------------
Keith
has had many chances to stop his abuse,
my therapist,Paula
Weiss,
emailed him in July
2014 to
stop harrassing and hounding me to go to the art group, I wrote him a
note, in
November
2014 ,
on an envelope (and
left it on the table before med monitoring and his usual RC
appointment with my housemate Melissa
Willard)
since
he talks non-stop to please
stop teasing me -- that
it was making me physically and mentally ill
and
was an
inappropriate abuse of medication monitoring.
And
his access to me since after 3 years of packing out my meds at the
time I was writing the complaint about Eric
Gordon in
Sept. 2014,
Keith
convinced Dr.
Parveen to
make me attend 60
medication meetings a month which
are a waste of time, if staff isn't running in and out the door
immediately, screaming at me about housekeeping, Keith plays more
elaborate and damaging games -- I think this stopping my packing out
after so many years was retribution for saying that I was filing a
grievance and I
was forbidden to talk about it at
med monitoring, I
have also been forbidden to talk about my physical health since
it upsets Melissa and 6 month attempt to gain help in getting the CT
for the liver and kidney masses that were seen as incidental in the
back MRI that my orthopedist ordered April 2014, when I finally went
back to Dr. Kessous 8
months later his
nurse asked why it took so long to get the CT.
Paula
again emailed Keith Ellis in
December
2014, at
my request,
to
stop treating me like a clown for his amusement, sometimes Keith
would back off briefly but would then come back strong with a new
twist on old
mind games or new mind games until
all
that was left was for me to scream and scream at him to STOP HOVERING
AND LEAVE ME ALONE, which
I have asked him to do many times over the past three months or so,
that it makes me nervous but like a junior high school teenager, if a
client tells Keith that something bothers them, Keith
has to do it even more, this is not the responsible behavior towards
the mentally ill required of a supervisor.
---------------------------------------
this
is not the responsible behavior towards the mentally ill required of
a supervisor
---------------------------------------
Keith
has made me and I believe other
patients in
Cornerstone-Montgomery
Residential Program much
more ill and I believe he has increased
the number of patients needing to be hospitalized or who need to stay
at Fenton or Grundy House which
certainly needless costs Cornerstone and the funders including
government funding and is the opposite treatment of which is expected
by the community and government funding ENTRUSTED to Cornerstone
- Montgomery
WHILE
KEITH
ELLIS WAS
ASSISTANT
SUPERVISOR FOR
2 1/2 YEARS
AND
THEN MADE
SUPERVISOR IN
OCTOBER
2014:
I
finally called Department
of Aging, Adult Protective Services on
Betty Levy's behalf after months of periodically telling Keith and
staff that I would call them if
they did not get Betty some medical help and stop verbally
and mentally and emotionally abusing her.
I called in October
2014 and
I am sure Protective
Services has
the record of my call to them. Keith finally got Nurse
Josephine Marshall to
come out and look at Betty's very swollen shut eye and very swollen
feet which she had suffered from for at
least 6 months and
got her into a hospital with Shatara
Hill staying
with Betty until 10pm as Keith said, to be nice to Shatara and then
Keith said with no humor whatever, "You
think I'm a magician, don't you." This
call may be the reason for the increase of Keith's abusive teasing
and other abuse directed towards me.
If
Betty
Levy is
well enough to testify, I am sure she would be glad to talk about the
things done to her by staff while she lived at Banquo
Terrace,
she had a number of choice phrases for several of the RCs which she
told Melissa
Willard and
myself a number of times.
-------------------------------------------
Betty
(Lisabeth) Levy
67
year old client at Cornerstone Bel Pre not getting help, yelled at
October
12, 2014
I
am very worried about my housemate Betty. We are both in a group
home.
Sunday
evening, Oct. 12 I was soaking towels in water to wrap around Betty's
foot, left so swollen she didn't know what to do so she put Lysol
cleaner on it , I helped her to wash it off, told her not to do that
again, huge
bunion also on her left foot,
Betty
cannot wear shoes
and
her RC, Shatara
Hill,
will not help her only screams and screams abuse at Betty, can hear
Shatara screaming an hour at a time even when I am downstairs working
on computer. When I was sitting next to Betty at med monitoring, did
not hear her speak but Shatara interrupted her screaming at Betty to
do housework to screaming at Betty for treating her, Shatara without
respect.
Jessica Cetout does
this too when she would occasionally come before Inspection and would
not answer questions about needed items to do the housework.
Betty's
right leg hurts so bad (for
many months) she
can't sleep, sleeps sitting up in living room or kitchen table for
several months, with her head thrown back, or on her shoulder or
sometimes with her face on the table - when
I tell RCs about the pain she is in that she can't lie down, they
just scream at her and she goes upstairs to sleep in hard back chair
in her bedroom
since Betty says she can't get her leg on bed and is too painful if
she does.
Also
her eye hurts so bad in the past few months, Betty says that it is
too painful to put her head down, Betty's
right eye weeping constantly and extremely swollen most of the time
for months.
******
Betty's
right eye weeping constantly.
******
A
few months ago Betty
fell down
front steps
hit her head,
Betty had a very bad black eye and bruised forehead when she was
going out with a Rehab Counselor Keisha
Johnson and
fell down
the outside
concrete steps
with one step missing onto
her face, Betty called an ambulance and went
alone to
ER and had to take a cab back, minimal concern from RCs except for
Keisha who was concerned that night and was very nice to Betty.
Watching
this cruelty to a 67 year old woman is terrible.
The
Rehab Counselors yell at her to take trash down the concrete steps
once
a week, she can't so I do it, I am 60 years old and have some
problems with my back and sciatica nerve pain in my right hip and
femor as verified by numerous x-rays recently by my orthopedist
Dr. Kessous.
----------------------------
More
threats to Betty about losing her housing if she cannot do her
chores.
The
RCs esp. Ana Reyes telling Betty for house inspection by CSA
Inspector Howard, (Oct. 2014) she has to hire a maid with her own
money, Merry Maids charges $100 for 2 hours of cleaning. The staff
changed their mind and told Betty not to hire a maid service but to
do it herself. Betty called Merry Maids but said we did not need the
bathrooms to be done, I was sitting at the table and told her that
the bathrooms needed to be done but she said no. A few minutes after
Betty hung up the phone Merry Maids called her back and said they
could not work that Saturday and did not offer another day, I think
it was that Betty had trouble communicating as she did with doctors.
------------------------
Betty
finally got into a hospital in October and I had been cleaning and
decluttering but the RCs esp. Shatara
Hill and
Jessica
Cetout would
scream at me to clean and would
not listen when I told them the work I had done in
between resting because of sweating profusely and red face and
weakness told David and Meghan that I was going to be like one of
those elderly people who drop dead shoveling snow so they left me
alone for a while to dry off and gain strength in the two hours they
were hear and pushing me beyond my physical abilities to rapidly do
housework that I should not have had to do alone.
so
I started a list of chores that I had been doing hour by hour then
resting but
they refused to look at it, would not
give me a copy of the usual chores required for House Inspection
until
almost the day of inspection. Keith would not buy a decent mop,
bought a string mop that you have to wring out by hand and David
bought dry swifters which needed spray cleaner which we did not have,
I bought Ajax twice but could not afford all the supplies needed so
did my best with water or the usual extra supplies for Inspection.
Gus,
the maintenance person, was in and out did a heroic job of fixing
things for weeks and asked quietly the day before since he
had seen me working alone for weeks,
remember when "Nicole (RC) and them would help with preparing
for inspection." and was flabbergasted that I was getting no
help, only promises that David would come, he came once with Meghan
who did clean Betty's room but they took the supplies they brought
with them when they left and Gus asked how long they stayed and I
said about 2 hours which is a drop in the bucket.
I
told Gus that Keith promised but refused to give me the extra
supplies for housecleaning including a mop and Gus gave me some
cleaning supplies the day before the inspection and said he wished he
had known that I had no cleaning supplies and even had to cut up rags
since there was no papertowels bought since Melissa
Willard persuaded
the House Meeting RC David not to charge the usual $10 from each
person for supplies but only $5 and since Betty was gone this did not
go far.
I
ended up doing the whole house for inspection
which we passed,
was ill, in pain from sciatic nerve pain, Keith told me to call 911
if I were ill otherwise to clean the whole 3 story townhouse by
myself.
The
day after PASSING
INSPECTION,
the abuse continued and still continues about my supposedly not
cleaning, Ana
Reyes,
snide RC,
told
me at med monitoring (The
day after PASSING
INSPECTION)
that there were a few glasses in the sink that the kitchen was a mess
and since Betty was no longer her, "You
can't blame it on Betty."
I
was too sick after weeks of cleaning the townhouse and could not make
food, my face continued to be very red after any exertion, I had
never used that phrase of Melissa
Willard when
she repeated refused to help with the Inspection housecleaning, that
she was not going to do Betty's work and my job coach asked what
Betty's work was and I said sweeping and mopping which she was not
able to do, Melissa was required to sweep and mop in ordinary
household chores but since Betty was unable to Melissa refused to do
her cleaning for about 6 months even the stairs or upstairs which was
Melissa's job. Melissa is in her 40s is able bodied, lifts weights,
goes on power walks, but has severe eating issues has been
hospitalized much more in the past year than usual but before always
did her chores.
Months
later Keith Ellis continues to use the phrase, "Betty
is gone, you can't blame it on Betty." which
makes me furious. I have never regretted anything as much as making
myself so ill doing this entire townhouse myself with ta variety of
threats of losing my housing, worsening sciatic pain until cortisone
shot a month ago which is wearing of by cleaning and decluttering
this 3 story townhouse including 3 bathrooms without cleaning
supplies, I
never want to be put through this again though the abuse about
cleaning continues from the time the townhouse passed inspect to now.
I
could take care of a small apartment but I
cannot continue to be the sole housemaid for a 3 story townhouse and
clean up after Debbie
Davis and Melissa Willard and
the RCs tracking in mud and leaves.
When
the
CSA Inspector Howard gave
me a copy of the CSA
questionnaire on client satisfaction with
Cornerstone, I said I had to go upstairs to get my glasses and Keith
said, "I
will go along with her to make sure she writes only good things.
Then Keith said "no
I'm just joking." but
went upstairs with me and hovered
while I marking the questionnaire.
I
noticed for the second year and should have and will ask Howard
why CSA no
longer has the question they
had for the previous 3 inspections on CLIENT
SATISFACTION WITH HOW SLH/CORNERSTONE-MONTGOMERY handles GRIEVANCES.
I
always gave high marks and the
lowest mark for this question.
I would imagine many clients did and instead of investigating why
SLH/Cornerstone does such inadequate investigations of GRIEVANCES CSA
decided to drop the question so it would not mess up their
statistics.
-----------------------------------
Before
screaming about housework, someone needs to make sure that clients
are receiving services promised
and
rights guaranteed by Comar Law are respected
-----------------------------------
I
also noticed this time that there were other questions missing, the
Client Satisfaction questionnaire was always one page but is now
closer to half a page.
Before
Betty moved into this townhouse a year ago, she was in a St.
Lukes/Cornerstone Montgomery Bel
Pre cluster apartment
which was apparently much better for Betty than this 3 story
townhouse. Her then RC, Amanda,
said she could take the bus then and was more independent and several
RCs said she has gone downhill since she has moved here. When she
moved in her feet were not so swollen that Betty could not wear shoes
and has had to go grocery shopping in her stocking feet. Her later
RC Shatara
would scream at Betty to take a cab and buy new shoes and later said
to Betty if you can't find a pair big enough, buy the biggest shoes
you can and cut them up.
The
Rehab Counselors used to keep record of physical problems and go to
doctor with clients, Betty is sometimes confused sometimes sharp but
needs this help, Nurse
Josephine Marshall,
if
she is listed as one of my providers why can't I speak to her????,
even Pam,
long
time receptionist at Southport, said she had never heard of a nurse
called Josephine and the only one at
Southport was
a nurse, LaToye,
who
only gave injections.
But
found out from RC
Ana Reyes that
Josephine is
at Southport then Jessica
Cetout gave
me the nurses full name and I think that is when I got the true
location of this nurse which is at the Silver Spring office until she
found out this information was also top secret, Cornerstone
is
charging Medicaid and Medicare for services not remotely provided.
Debbie
Davies noticed
right away, she said with in the first week or two to Meghan that she
was the only one to stay and who seemed interested in clients that
the others couldn't get out quick enough and this was very true
before Debbie came. Possibly they run and in out so they don't want
to get in trouble for giving away information that clients have a
legitimate right to know but which Keith has decided is top secret,
like the
last names of RCs,
the people caring for us in violation of the Comar law listed in
RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBLITIES.
Keith
at first just joked around and gave me a hard time and NO
answers
as to why all the residents in this townhouse had
to
meet with NURSE Josephine Marshall
(only
meeting, have not heard from her since) in
April 2014 and
answer questions from a very, very nosy questionnaire
including questions if you were a transexual or homosexual, satisfied
with your sex life, had ever been sexually assaulted and more and
more intimate questions that even a therapist at the first meeting
doesn't ask much less all at once, I complained to Lisa
Rhodes about
the extensive nature of these inappropriate personal questions just
afterwards most of which had nothing whatever to do with STDs or
anything even a nurse should be asking especially if it is
planned---in opposition to what Keith said to get us to go along with
this questionnaire---that
only select clients or
maybe none will have access to this nurse and bogus health
organization.
Lisa
said she would pass it along and shortly thereafter Lisa went to work
at Lifeskills
after being my RC for a month after Christina
Taylor left
Bel
Pre after
4 years due from things Christina said to wild meetings and referring
to Keith several times over two years obliquely -- they did not get
along and Christina
said Keith wanted to be my RC but she fought him down saying,
"I
know my people." again
obliquely referring to the fact that she knew Keith
Ellis would
mess me up so bad if he were my RC
but
at
medication meetings, Keith has managed with his ever increasing mind
games to reducing me to screaming at him, get
away, stop hovering, stop teasing me
but
like a teenage boy, if he knows something bothers you Keith will do
it all the more until I am almost totally non-functional.
Lisa
Rhodes too
when Keith was asking me at the Bel Pre office why
I didn't want him to be my RC,
I said to Keith that he
was too quick and too witty for me (to
be polite) and Keith
said no one had ever called him witty before
and Lisa said firmly that David
Minestone was
quiet and calm and a better match FOR ME.
But
David rarely showed up for our scheduled RC meetings or house
meetings which made my
housemate Melissa
Willard furious
and she would call Bel
Pre office asking
where David was and that we had been sitting there waiting for an
hour with no call from David, standing us up as I put it and Melissa
started putting it, like me for a while Melissa would shout at David
sometimes shaking she was so angry why
he did not call at least to cancel housemeeting when
David did show up on whatever day or hour we would not be aware of
but David
usually wouldn't answer or gave a nonsensical reply and
like me Melissa would just say
"I guess it stood us up again." and
would just accept it rather than getting so agitated.
--------------------
At
the time of the questionnaire, 4/2014, Keith
Ellis told
us before she came that Josephine
and
Home
Health had
been hired to
coordinate somatic care,
so it would be to our
benefit
to
cooperate with the written questionnaire but after asking Keith
several times, 6 months later, and getting the runaround and rude
questions why I wanted to talk to nurse Josephine, I said REPEATEDLY
that both
Betty and I need her help that had
been promised by our signing papers and agreeing to the long
questionnaire.
Keith FINALLY said he would contact Josephine to see if
she was taking calls(???).
If
Cornerstone is charging Medicare for this service from Josephine
and
Home Health,
and according to the first page of my treatment plan on the computer,
Josephine Marshall is listed as one of my providers since April this
is fraud.
Medicare
Fraud Hotline.
Ms. Wilkoff not doing her job of grievance for five years and
refuses to follow grievance procedure about letters updating action
taken on complaint.
Montgomery
Hospital ER should
have computer printout on how many times Betty has called an
ambulance and gone to ER for
very real somatic problems.
Later after meeting with nurse Josephine and being placed...
somewhere, I never saw Betty Levy again, the RCs said months later
when I asked repeatedly that Betty was still in Rehab about a month
later after Betty saw Josephine and Keith said to be nice to Shatara
because she waited with Betty until 10pm so that Betty would be
admitted, Betty started receiving bills from Holy
Cross which
is a very good hospital and saved my mother's life several times when
the nursing home was afraid to call the hospital and my mother would
be comatose and I would have to call 911, ride with the paramedics
and wait for many hours with my mother to be admitted but the doctors
in ER really cared unlike Shady Grove and Montgomery Hospitals.
Betty
has a bad cough though she has never been a smoker.
Betty
has to go grocery shopping with only one shoe and a sock because her
right foot is so swollen, both feet were swollen terribly for months
and months but the RCs still screamed at her to do the housework, the
Montgomery
General ER finally
after many times of Betty calling 911 and going alone by ambulance,
gave her a special braced shoe just for her right foot and a walker.
The Rehab Counselors are not concerned with the
reason why betty has no shoes, her very swollen feet and huge bunion
but
just tell her to take a cab, she does not have cab coupons or metro
access, to
buy some shoes at an inexpensive shoe store.
RCs
used to go with me to doctor and go into to visit the doctor and help
with questions and organising and keeping track of medical problems,
and for other clients as well.
The
ER just tells Betty to go to her doctor, Betty says Dr.
Cohen and
her opthmologist don't
care or help.
When I used to ask her if she remembered to tell the doctors what she
had told me about her pain, Betty
would say once in the doctors office
she would forget.
The
RCs get very frustrated and angry by Betty's inconsistencies which
she cannot help and offer
her no real help only anger and intense verbal abuse that I can even
downstairs hear Shatara screaming at Betty for an hour since Shatara
was her RC but
except when she after about 8 months living here went with Betty to
help her get admitted to the hospital presumably because Josephine
the day before who came out to see Betty, told Keith and Shatara how
visibly ill Betty really was and need to be hospitalized.
Amanda,
who was Betty's first RC, said she was getting a lot of flack for not
being able to get Betty to perform as the
"team"
thought Betty should. Amanda said it was very stressful for her and
quit shortly after she said this --
the
team in name only just
blames the RC for lack of independent action or performance and they
certainly do not seem to act as a team.
Keith's
humor can be very engaging but he is very little help and the MISUSE
OF MEDICATION MONITORING AND "VISITS" for his
clowning around and constant text messaging instead of talking to
clients and giving straight answers would
be unprofessional in an RC much less the title of Assistant
Supervisor that
he had when he first came here from Threshold
and now that Arlene,
the supervisor hired
from Pennsylvania,
has been pushed out, Keith
is now Supervisor of Bel Pre.
When
Arlene
came to talk to Betty she was very gentle and seemed really concerned
about what was best for Betty but
management
has been making some very detrimental decisions and
many
experienced, trained and caring REHABILITATION COORDINATIRS have
quit.
Christina
Taylor told
me that before
Arlene Gomez was
hired both she and Keith applied for the job of supervisor but they
told Christina that she would need more supervisory experience. I
can't imagine Christina mocking clients as Keith has done more and
more.
---------------
EXIT
INTERVIEWS FOR
EMPLOYEES LEAVING ARE A MUST FOR IDENTIFYING
PROBLEM
SUPERVISORS AND OTHER EMPLOYEES AND CLIENTS WHO ABUSE OTHER CLIENTS.
There
are Exit
Interview software
programs so that CSA and Cornerstone
could
stop raging fires before they happen again.
---------------
The
ER flushed Betty's very swollen, weeping right eye on two different
visits recently, Betty has said for months it feels like she has
glass in her eye and she is afraid she will lose her eye. 4 days
ago, her eye was swollen shut and Keith
Ellis the supervisor just told her to call the ambulance and
left after med monitoring, like all the RCs gave her no moral or any
other support and she has to take a cab home after minimal
insufficient care. Betty has gone to Montgomery ER 10 to 15 times in
the past year after calling 911 and the RCs show no concern whatever
for her health or helping her talk to doctors and get care.
They
yell at her, treat her so disrespectfully that I have several times
told them I would call Adult Protective Services and
they are nicer to her for a short time.
I
placed on the table a brochure from St.
Mary Magdalene Episcopal Church on
Elder
Abuse with
a simple drawing on the cover of two middle age children of an
elderly person in a wheelchair screaming uncontollably at him whose
shoulders are drawn up. I placed it on the table for a week and
during med monitoring Keith
just waved his hand over it dismissively. Many
of the things mentioned in this brochure remind me of the way Betty
is treated but none of the RCs would look at it.
They
threaten her constantly with the loss of her housing but do nothing
to help her. An RC, a Rehabilitation
Counselor,
is supposed to have more skills than yelling and berating and
threatening. Some of this attitude that clients are to be treated as
animals or less to be controlled is coming from upper management and
the training and the emphasis on independence which sounds good but
some
clients are not
physically capable of
the independence they demand.
-------------------
Keith
had asked me twice when he first came and a year later, who
my supervisor was
and
I said, "I
don't have a supervisor, I am a client, I have a REHABILITATION
COUNSELOR."
even
though Keith doesn't use the term supervisor, he has always treated
me as a subordinate and not a client/patient.
-------------------
A
few months ago I tried to talk to Keith about his apparent belief
that I am not mentally ill and
a client and
the way he talks to me and he said coldly and flatly, "I
believe you are sick." It
was the same tone he used a few days after Christina left, she was
also Melissa Willard's RC if we missed Christina and we said we did
then I asked Keith if he missed Christina and in the same flat voice
which means the opposite of the words said, "Yeah,
I miss Christina."
Betty
sometimes stops eating she is so distressed by the verbal abuse,
I have told RCs after I noticed that Betty had not used any dishes
for a week and had not eaten and they are unconcerned. Betty can't
always get to bank for cab fare to grocery shopping or she is too ill
or in too much pain I have bought groceries for her several times
with her money at her request and at the time of her week where she
did not mention it I just noticed that she had not been eating and
she had been staring blankly on the couch since she had trouble
making it up the stairs and slept on the couch sitting up despite the
screaming abuse of staff, and Betty said she was overweight but she
was very depressed.
If
I asked her if I could make her something to eat she would say no but
if I put a plate of food in front of her she would eat. Melissa
Willard got
on board with treating Betty as a scapegoat,
would say that Betty would steal her food, Betty said she was
confused and could not get to the grocery store but even after Bel
Pre gave Melissa a
small refrigerater in
her very large master bedroom and a
very nice tall bookshelf type with very large plastic drawers for
cereal, canned goods and
Melissa transferred all her food upstairs since staff did not want
the inspector to see her food placed against the walls of her room.
But
despite this, Melissa kept screaming also at Betty that Betty did not
belong here, even if
Betty had been placed in the wrong program it was not her fault and
to see a person who is visibly very ill being screamed at by Melissa
when she felt angry.
Betty
said she spent several days in her room sitting up in the plastic
chair because Melissa was acting wild before she went into the
hospital again and I had noticed it as well and was concerned though
Melissa and I usually get along and I have put alot into our
relationship, listening to her doing what she wants basically a
one-sided relationship but Melissa has rarely been abusive or played
games with me in 2 1/2 years but even
when I would say Betty fell down the stairs and had a black eye
Melissa
would tell the RCs that it wasn't fair on me for me to take down the
trash twice a week. Though people have had compassion on Melissa and
she gets help that she needs, neither she nor the RCs had any
compassion on Betty and treated her like a scapegoat or an insect.
Betty
was fairly strong person emotionally when she started and was a
little smart mouthed though she only said a few words at a time and
didn't talk fast but Betty started breaking down after the
twice daily verbally assaults from
most of the RCs. NO ONE, EVER,
DESERVES TO BE TREATED LIKE BETTY WAS as if she were not human and
Keith and the RCs have
started treating me like the scapegoat even
Melissa Willard. Betty finally was more upset by the things Melissa
said to her and said Melissa
acted like Betty had no right to be there and
I told Betty she
had as much right to be here as Melissa and
Melissa not only implied but directly said in medication monitoring
and ran up to Betty sitting at the dining room table and would tell
Betty directly that she did not belong here.
I
would object and Melissa would get angry with me and since Keith is
now treating me as the scapegoat and is Melissa's RC I wonder how
much undue influence has been and is being brought to bear on Melissa
to treating both of us so badly.
Betty
started crying during medication monitoring and she said she was
afraid of losing her eye to
Anna Bikakis,
who was sympathetic but her demeanor basically said that Anna could
do nothing to help Betty stop the severe abuse that got worse and
worse as they saw Betty had no protection, her brother rarely called,
unlike Melissa who goes out weekly to lunch with her parents and
whose father has said if Melissa dies from her hunger strikes that he
will sue, that no matter how hard she tries to do the housework, I
stated repeatedly at the housemeetings we did have and med monitoring
that Betty
cleaned the dishes soaking and put them in the rack and
would try to do things that did not demand her bending down since she
had severe arthritis and it was obvious she could not bend over and
since she was tall and heavy said many times that she was afraid of
falling AGAIN her
rc Shatara just
keeps yelling at her and I can testify to that. Melissa was there
when Betty started crying, she rarely cries and I told Keith a few
days later but he was unconcerned.
Betty
sleeps sitting up on the sofa or kitchen table, she says it is too
painful for her right leg and sometimes her eye to lie down or put
her head down, sphenoidal sinusitus could be, I had that but Betty
would need a forehead CT to find out.
It's
hard for betty to even walk upstairs or downstairs to the finished
basement and the unfinished laundry room, I have helped her several
times wash her clothes and wish I had done more but even I was fooled
sometimes by the intense effort by "staff" making her the
scapegoat and the incessantly repeated by RCs and even Melissa "SHE
CAN DO IT HERSELF." which
was a very, very obvious lie.
much
less kneel down to clean the bathtub
Betty
had a lot of medication, handfuls and handfuls morning and afternoon
(instead
of evening as was the rule) the
coming
too close together of
medication monitoring is dangerous--TAKE DOSES AT EVENLY SPACED
INTERVALS- and they should have gotten Betty bubble
packs,
I had it for a year at other RCs request even though I didn't need
it. When I asked Ana
Reyes why
Betty had to go constantly to the store by cab in swollen feet after
being screamed constantly at to get her medication (handfuls, huge
amount of meds Betty was on) that she could not put her shoes on Ana
said with a smirk, "We
don't want Betty to get too lazy."
I
kept telling Ana when she would play games and berate Betty, LOOK
AT HER FEET THEY ARE SO SWOLLEN but
no
one would help her get medical care or
even stop abusing her, everytime Ana
would leave Betty would say, "Does
she know how awful she is?"
Betty
had an even more choice name for Shatara Hill which is unrepeatable
but which I agree with.
for
a while Betty couldn't walk down the basement stairs to use the
shower stall so she doesn't have to step a foot and a half to get
into the tub but her severe arthritis or sciatica pain in her right
leg and swollen feet make it impossible for her to go downstairs or
upstairs to her room.
Betty
needs help in picking things up off her floor, and making bed and
unpacking and hanging up her clothes I asked an RC to help Betty
obtain hangers but was told that was Betty's responsibity, what did
Betty do when she was at the Bel Pre Manor
Care apartment
close to the office with her clothes??? but her RC does not partner
with Betty to help but just yells at her.
Betty
had a severe swelling on hand or arm don't remember now, thought was
bedbug bite, see if Betty's new bed and my bed have plastic sheeting
with zipper, and my bed, look in linen closet for sheets and for
plastic bedbug sheeting
Pam
said about two weeks ago when I called that there was no nurse
Josephine
Marshall at
Southport found out later she was at the Silver Spring office but
Keith
Ellis who
is now supervisor since last Wed said
he will find out if
she is taking calls!!!
Ana
Reyes
told me Josephine's first name and when I asked why she and Home
Care Heath had
been hired to coordinate care if
they are unavailable,
Ana went on and on about how this agency and Cornerstone were
planning to expand in 10
years,
neither I nor Betty can
wait 10 years for the promised home
health nurse to
follow and coordinate my and Betty Levy's medical conditions - why
did we have to fill out a very nosy long, long questionnaire with
nurse where roommates had to go upstairs for privacy last April???
They
are not waiting 10 years to get paid from
the funds Cornerstone raises and uses this heath care something or
other to promote their supposed care for clients' physical
well-being.
----------------------
The
night after I called Adult
Protective Services
to
tell them how ill Betty had been for months and the ongoing verbal
abuse, mostly because of her severe physical problems which the RCs
kept screaming at her to go to the doctor or call 911 and go to the
ER by herself, which she did 12 or 15 times in the months Betty was
at Banquo
Terrace ---when
I would ask for her RC, Shatara Hill, to go with Betty to help her
explain to the doctors and to provide an added incentive for ER to
give her more help for her horribly swollen feet than just give her a
walker and a special shoe.
Later
Betty had the Lysol on the kitchen table and said she had put the
Lysol on the foot to try to get the swelling to go down and to
disinfect it, I told her not to do that that I had some rubbing
alcohol, there is very little in the First Aid Kit left. I wet a
large bathtowel and washed off Betty's foot and then wet another
towel with warm water and wrapped it around the foot telling her the
warm water I put on the towel would soon cool off and that the cool
wet towel might bring the swelling down as well as clean off the rest
of the Lysol.
Keith
asked me questions downstairs about Betty and for once was serious
and not in his perpetual party personality which makes communication
impossible. I think Betty who was sitting at the kitchen table near
the staircase could hear. The most memorable thing to me was when I
told Keith that the night before Betty had showed me how swollen one
foot and lower leg was, her feet had been so swollen getting steadily
worse, it seem that they couldn't get any more swollen, but she was
right, one foot was very noticibly much more swollen that the other.
Keith
immediately grabbed hold of this when I mentioned it and said as he
wrote that Betty could not take care of herself. Keith
was very cold, obviously did not care about Betty and was just
looking for something to make her look bad and to get rid of a client
that he and the other RCs told repeatedly to Betty that she would
lose her housing if she did not do as they said until in the two
weeks before I called Protective
Services Betty
stopped being afraid and would respond, "I DON'T
CARE."
----------------------
The
last time I saw Betty the night after she met with Josephine, Betty
called a private contractor to come and jimmy the cover over the
thermostat
control.
Betty constantly complained how cold she was. Betty turned up the
thermostat to 90 degrees, after Bel Pre office was closed, I would
wake up and turn it down and ask Betty not to turn it up so high but
she would not talk to me though we were on very friendly terms for a
long, long time. Betty
had a fixed scary smile that either looked like she was crying or
extremely bitter.
She continued sitting on the couch with the fixed smile all night
long. Her face was usually mobile, I had never seen this expression
before but well understood her extreme bitterness at the shameful way
she had been treated for months.
I
kept waking up because of the heat, would turn it down and ask Betty
not to turn it up again and asked if she was crying because of the
fixed look but she just stared straight ahead hour after hour, she
would not answer me. I called Jeff at the SLH/Cornerstone
psychiatric emergency line,
as usual he was not there and said to leave a message or have him
paged. I left a message and called the other emergency number which
was
fenton/McCullough House the
young girl who answered said she
did not know if she was allowed to page Jeff,
I told her of the message on his emergency line but she refused.
Left
several voicemail messages for Jeff
which
he never responded to -- I called 911 and said I didn't know if I
needed someone to come out but needed advice about the 90 degree heat
possibly starting a fire, I was put through to the fire department
and a woman said the thermostats prevent a fire even at 90 degrees
over hours and if there was some place I could go to get relief from
the heat, I said the basement but even the basement was very hot.
When I woke up Betty was gone and Keith said later that Shatara had
stayed with Betty until 10 pm at the hospital until she was admitted.
-------------------------
They
can't take away my dignity, but they certainly try.
-------------------------
When
signed for my Treatment Plan last Friday, David said he would give me
a copy of treatment plan but Bel Pre staff rarely keeps their
promises, asked anna B. my present RC for a copy on Sunday she said
she would meet with me on Thursday and bring it but I am skeptical.
said
she would send email to my job coach about laptop but she
misremembered our conversation in the one sit down meeting we had
after David transferred me to her and she only stayed about 10
minutes.
why
can't I have a copy of my treatment plan, no one went over it with
me. Told Keith a number of times and he keeps promising I will have a
copy.
Arlene
Gomez said that Bel Pre didn't have much in the way of funds but that
there was funding marked for replacement of broken
answering machine,
I am waiting for responses for my grievance complaint. The light in
the answering machine goes in and out. will not replace the answering
machine. (I
have mentioned this numerous times including at house meeting, it is
hard to make outgoing calls since the phone only sporadically works
but they will not replace the phone despite the right to have access
to a phone.)
Inspection
is Oct 23 for both HUD and Core Service agency Howard, Keith won't
take my questions on anything seriously just jokes around which is
disasterous for clients in an asst supervisor and now the supervisor
since Arlene Gomez left after
just 9 months after
moving from Pennsylvania she was very nice the other RCs scream and
don't partner or help with anything.
Howard,
CSA House Inspector, always leaves a questionnaire for CSA to know
how clients rate SLH/Cornerstone Montgomery, always would give
highest marks for everything EXCEPT HOW SLH HANDLES GRIEVANCES. A
number of other clients must have done the same thing because CSA
left the question about how Cornerstone handles grievances off the
client satisfaction survey.
at
Arlene's going away party last Wed one of the clients said he
appreciated being told that Arlene the supervisor was leaving since
so many people/ rcs have left recently and nobody
told the clients.
Keisha
and Nikki Lak really cared about
clients and helped with cleaning for inspections in
past years,
they keep telling Betty she has to hire a maid then change their mind
and say Shatara will partner (this
from Ana) then
Keith will say Betty and possibly me need to hire a maid, I could
have tried to save money - can't afford it now.
Keith
will not meet with me privately for 15 minutes after med meetings as
he and other rcs have done for other housemate Melissa Willard
literally hundreds of times. I rarely ask but with grievance and
David my rc not showing up for RC meetings or House Meetings have
needed someone to talk to but not
someone who clowns around and
spends most of his time as he always has during the 15 minutes he is
required to stay for med meetings in case clients need help -- doing
private text messaging or playing computer games on his cellphone.
When
I told him after a year of just sitting there during what is supposed
to be a
visit at med monitoring that
Keith was in love with his cell phone, Keith said he was always
texting about needs of clients at our house but it has been true a
very few times most of the time it would not have to do with us.
After Keith started his malicious teasing, I would tell him to go
back to playing with his cell phone but it was more fun for him to
torment me until I would be screaming. Ana Reyes also spent most of
the time that was being paid for as a visit for clients playing with
her cell phone.
Very,
very rude, this is supposed to be our time, the three of us not just
melissa, or his cell phone. Melissa's dad said that if she died from
her hunger strikes that he would sue St
Luke's Cornerstone but
this was even before Keith came a year and a half ago, they used to
wait until Melissa was very very ill and could hardly walk before
getting her to Fenton house or a hospital where most of the time,
she had to go on a feeding tube.
------
Tripping
on livingroom step
The
living room at Banquo has one step up to the dining room, there is a
gold colored metal strip on the edge like the ones on the staircases
but there was no protective strip underneath and several times my
pant leg caught on the nails exposed and hanging down. In October
2014, my pant leg caught on one of these exposed but hidden nails and
when I found I could not right myself and would fall, I threw the
glass mug and glass jar I was carrying as far from me as I could, I
hit and skinned and twisted my knee, if I had fallen with the glasses
in my hand it would have been much, much worse.
Melissa
heard me fall, came downstairs and cleaned up the water and tea and
broken glass and found some antiseptic and bandages for my knee.
When I told Keith about it later, he blamed me, told me to stop
wearing clothes that were too big, and related a story about having
pajamas that were too big and always tripping, I
asked him to let maintenance know to fix it and
Keith
just kept telling me to get clothes that fit.
It was inspection time and Gus was in and out working hard, a few
days later when he came, I told him and Gus immediately knelt down
and hammered the nails sideways to eliminate the danger. I asked Gus
if Keith had called and he said no.
Several
similar things have happened and I wonder if Keith and the RCs get in
trouble if they call Maintenance, like the large convex bubble in the
living room ceiling from the water and debris that poured in from the
wall in my bedroom adjoining the next smallest bedroom during a hard
rain.
david
did not show up for housemeeting again monday 6th
did
not call
mw
said i guess dm stood us up again made appt for thurs
but
not calling to cancelling waiting and waiting changed from 4 would
show up 5:30 changed to 3pm showed up at 4 30 we have inspections
did not buy adequate supplies last month and we need supplies this
month and inspection date changed from 23 to 15th in
past rcs have helped told
would call dept
of aging if
Shatara didn't quit berating Betty who has trouble walking much less
scrubbing
kitchen without
papertowels and old
oily sponges and
no
working mop for months, (doesn't squegee and sopping wet, have to
find and cut up and dry with rags, a lot of extra work) and
dry swifters - good for cobwebs and walls but not floors.
When
will we be getting extra supplies??? I
keep asking this question, we always get extra cleaning supplies
before inspections.
had
to cancel the appt for my Cat Scan with contrast for a serious liver
problem that was discovered last spring with an orthopedist MRI was
incidental finding, had ultrasound and it is very serious, a blood
vessel in liver, have
told rcs including Keith that my doctor and her assistant both said
in September to have the CT done and come
back quickly
Monday
oct 13 because anna could not work overtime gets there at 12 noon.
I
told Keith last week he was not taking my problem with my liver
seriously and neither was Anna or David my current and former RCs and
Keith said "Are
you taking your liver problem seriously?" which
didn't make any sense since I have been trying to get the RCs to help
me and take an interest and find out why Nurse
Josephine Marshall is
being listed as one of my providers but has been incommunicado since
last spring despite having an office at the Silver Spring Cornerstone
location.
last
week Anna was very busy and said she would meet with me twice next
week starting oct 12 but sunday she said she
has another busy week when
i asked her again to give me times and days she was free so that i
could reschedule the very important liver ct that i have needed since
last spring when orthopedist and radiologist saw two spots or lumps
in my rt kidney and liver, david not showing up, lisa quiting had to
cancel podiatrist appt twice in a row and both,
David and then Lisa Rhodes just before she went to work at
Southport-- did not show up and
the line, one
phone line to bel pre office was busy when tried to call to find out
why they were not there to take me to podiatrist appt.
If
need help or more information
The
project manager in HUD
Multifamily Hub, Multifamily Field Office
or
your local Contract Administrator
http://222.hud.gov/local/index.cfm
housing
counseling agency in
your community HUD housing Couseling Service locator at
1-800-569-4287
Hud
clearinghouse to report maintenance
or management
concerns 1-800-685-8470
Inspector
General
Hot Line 1-800-347-3735
to report fraud,
waste or mismanagement
if
believe discriminated
against 1-800-669-9777
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