SLS Health

Repost…

THESE ARE THE FACTS REGARDING THE STATUS OF SLS HEALTH VS OMH AS OF MARCH 23, 2009:

1.) On or around December 3rd Justice O’Rourke from the Putnam County
Supreme Court ordered that all fines and also ordered OMH would be barred
from taking further regulatory action against SLS, including the revocation
of SLS licenses. This was after him supposedly reviewing the over 3,498
pages of evidence in ONE NIGHT.

2.) On December 10 the NY State Attorney General filed a motion with the
Appellate Division barring enforcement of Justice O’Rourke’s order until the
Appellate Division has had an opportunity to review and decide the appeal.
This permitted the OMH Revocation hearing to move forward (and it did start
on Jan 5, 2009). Also, the Appellate Division only grants orders of this
type when it has serious concerns about the order issued by the lower court.
In this case the fact that all of the evidence could not have been humanly
possible to be reviewed in under 24 hours made Justice O’Rourke’s order
appear to be a “favor” to SLS.

3.) On December 23 the Appellate Division acted swiftly and issued an
Emergency Stay of Justice O’Rourke’s order. Justice O’Rourke’s order was
stayed, meaning not in effect, on the condition the NY Attorney General
files its appellate brief on or before Jan. 22, 2009. This means the
Appellate Division is fast-tracking the appeal.

4.) On Jan 19, 2009 the OMH Revocation Hearing started. SLS made a motion
prior to the OMH Revocation Hearing on Jan 5,2009 to have the administrative
judge recues himself since he oversaw the hearings regarding the fines and
investigations. The motion was denied. SLS appealed this decision on Jan
14, 2009 to the OMH Commissioner. He rejected the appeal.

5.) On Jan 20, 2009 SLS commenced another lawsuit in front of Justice
O’Rourke of Putnam County requesting to overrule the OMH Commissioners
decision to allow the Administrative Judge to not recues himself from the
Revocation Hearing. Justice O’Rourke DENIED SLS’ request. The NY Attorney
General also filed motion to dismiss SLS lawsuit as well as fil the Appeal
Brief and the parties were due in court on Feb 10, 2009. The NY State
Attorney General filed the following to the Appellate Court:

“. Justice O’Rourke signed the order finding that Prof. Hutter’s decision
was not supported by the evidence one day after he received the 3, 498 page
hearing transcript.

. Although SLS complains that OMH relied on hearsay (which is allowed in
administrative hearings) it failed to mention that its expert, Dr. Samenow,
relied on statements made by 14 unidentified SLS patients to him.

. SLS policy allowed restraints, euphemistically called Brief Safety
Interventions, to last up to 45 minutes even though SLS’ own expert
testified that they should last no longer than 20 minutes due to the risks
to the patient.

. In 2006, SLS restrained one-fourth of its residents.

. Santoro admitted that SLS would only call a physician “sometimes” after a
patient was restrained; Dr. Stumacher, the in-house physician, testified
that he was not summoned when restraints were used.

. SLS Clinical Director, Shawn Prichard admitted that he would monitor
patients’ phone calls to their families when in his opinion, they were lying
about conditions at SLS.

. Among the many incidents that SLS was required to report to OMH- but did
not-were the following: 1. A patient received 12 stitches at the community
hospital after cutting her arm with glass. The hospital concluded she was
suicidal and transferred her to a psych hospital. Betsey Bergman testified
that SLS did not report this to OMH because they did not think the patient
was suicidal. 2. A patient got violent, went to store, called 911 and said
she was going to kill herself. SLS did not report this to OMH because they
felt she was not suicidal.

. Betsey Bergman, who was in charge of Incident Reporting, had never heard
of the regulations on incident reporting and had never conducted a special
investigation into any incident.

. Matt Sena, SLS’ Residential Director, did not know what constituted a
reportable incident and was not familiar with the OMH regulations.

. Despite regulations requiring staff to be fingerprinted, 21 employees were
not fingerprinted until months after they were hired. SLS admitted that
these employees had regular and substantial contact with patients. ”

6.) Feb 19, 2009 Justice O’Rourke to SLS “The Revocation Hearing will
proceed” and granted OMH’ motion to dismiss SLS’ lawsuit regarding the
recusal of the OMH Administrative Judge which was simply a delay tactic to
begin with and never had merit.

7.) On Feb 23 it was discovered by Justice O’Rourke (the Judge SLS
continuously lies to people that he supposedly granted them the big
“Victory” of OMH) that SLS no longer had a medical doctor on staff which is
an extremely serious regulatory violation. He also held that SLS improperly
brought the case in Putnam County and ordered the venue changed to Albany
County. He also stated that SLS is not entitled to any restraining orders
or any injunctions. After SLS received the order changing venue
and denying their request for an injunction, SLS filed a stipulation
discontinuing the action. Oddly, they filed it in Putnam and specifically
limited the discontinuance of action in Putnam, even though the case has
been moved to Albany.

8.) On March 25 SLS and Roman/Morgan start Mediation in result of the
Federal Judge ordering them to do so.

Summary: SLS lost it’s appeal that it has been touting about since Jan.
on two different websites with the sole purpose of misleading former
and current members and the people who pay for treatment.

They have not had any “victory” and in fact are in a worsening situation.
SLS is currently still participating in the OMH Revocation Hearing.

SLS employees including Joseph Santoro and Shawn Prichard were
CAUGHT lying under oath. Al Bergman was caught trying to
convince other programs to sign opt-out notices on behalf of
former members, so as to ensure they never even knew the lawsuit
existed.

Once the class action trial starts the REAL story will come out and
everything discussed so far will be reinforced, proven and finally
the former members can have the closure they deserve.

Source: fornits.com/phpbb

The Obama Deception

Quote

“Since Aristotle, man has organized his knowledge vertically in separate and unrelated groups — Science, Religion, Sex, Relaxation, Work etc. The main emphasis in his language, his system of storing knowledge, has been on the identification of objects rather than on the relationships between objects. He is now forced to use his tools of reasoning separately and for one situation at a time. Had man been able to see past this hypnotic way of thinking, to distrust it (as did Einstein), and to resystematize his knowledge so that it would all be related horizontally, he would now enjoy the perfect sanity which comes from being able to deal with his life in its entirety.

Recently, it has become possible for man to chemically alter his mental state and thus alter his point of view (that is, his own basic relation with the outside world which determines how he stores his information). He can restructure his thinking and change his language so that his thoughts bear more relation to his life and his problems, therefore approaching them more sanely.

It is this quest for pure sanity that forms the basis of the songs on this album.”

–Quote from the liner notes of The Psychedelic Sounds of The 13th Floor Elevators

It’s the Pot Economy, Stupid

It looks like the pot debate just got real. As the nation faces its worst economic crisis in generations, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has introduced a trailblazing bill to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol. Hard on the heels of Michael Phelps’ nationally-resonant bong demo, Ammiano’s gesture is a whole lot more intentional. One hopes it will stir the long-overdue national examination of the financial and human price that we pay for criminalizing pot.

The most widely used illicit drug in the western world, marijuana is a fact of life that’s been sampled by upwards of 100,000,000 Americans. Officially prohibited since 1937, we finally seem on the threshold of a promising moment in our nation’s tortured relationship to the drug. On November 4 alone, Massachusetts decriminalized personal pot use, Michigan became the thirteenth state to allow its medical use, and we elected a president who’s openly admitted to smoking it. National polls and the yawn that greeted the Phelps media frenzy indicate that Americans are reconciled to pot’s largely benign role in our culture.

Nevertheless, the mindless prohibition enforcement machine rolls on. In 2007, over 800,000 Americans were arrested for marijuana-related crimes (nearly 90 percent of them for possession), with upwards of 85,000 of them serving sentences in jail or prison. In the U.S., incredibly there are more arrests for marijuana possession each year than for all violent crimes combined. This astounding human toll from enforcing the ban on marijuana costs taxpayers roughly $8 billion each year. And those wasted resources are further compounded by the total capitulation of the massive pot market to an underground economy to gangsters who laugh all the way to the bank.

Amidst a national economic meltdown, California’s budget turmoil is the worst in the nation. After an excruciating three-month deadlock, the dysfunctional Sacramento legislature closed a $42 billion deficit by slashing aid to the most vulnerable in the state, raising a host of taxes and fees, and kicking the can down the road with billions more in borrowing. Meanwhile, California’s largest cash crop was studiously avoided in the frenzied search for politically-viable revenue sources. California’s marijuana yield is conservatively valued at $13.8 billion annually – nearly double the value of the state’s vegetable and grape crops combined.

Babies & Beats

Press Release: Newborn infants detect the beat in music (Dutch | Hugarian)

Researchers have found that newborn infants are able to detect the beat in music. The results support the theory that a sense for detecting a regular beat, termed ‘beat induction’, is innate or possibly learned already in the womb. Beat induction is probably fundamental to the origins of music, because it allows clapping or making music together, dancing to a rhythm, etc. István Winkler, Henkjan Honing and colleagues investigated beat induction in sleeping babies two or three days after birth.

Since it is not feasible to observe behavioral reactions in newborns, the researchers used scalp electrodes to measure electrical brain signals. The babies wore self-adhesive ear?couplers (see photo) through which a simple, regular rock rhythm was delivered, consisting of hi-hat, snare, and bass drum. Several variants of the basic rhythm were constructed by omitting strokes on non-significant positions of the rhythm. These variants were played to the infants, with a “deviant” segment, missing the downbeat, occasionally interspersed. Shortly after each deviant segment began, the babies’ brains produced an electrical response marking that they had expected to hear the downbeat but had not. This innate sense of rhythm is probably essential for bootstrapping verbal communication and music appreciation, the researchers say.

The research was conducted at the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the Cognitive Science Center Amsterdam at the University of Amsterdam within the EmCAP (Emergent Cognition through Active Perception) collaborative project funded by the European Commission’s 6th Framework Programme for ”Information Society Technologies” (contract no.: 013123).

Article #08-09035: “Newborn infants detect the beat in music,” by István Winkler, Gábor P. Háden, Olivia Ladinig, István Sziller, and Henkjan Honing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0809035106

Source: http://cf.hum.uva.nl/mmm/newborns/index.html