Monthly Archives: September 2010

Reflections of an Advocate, September 17, 2010

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Bigotry is inhumane.

For as long as far back as memory allows me I have always found it troubling when people were being treated inhumanely. This may explain why two of my childhood heroes were Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Geronimo. They still are heroes of mine. The hero list for me has grown since then. It now includes Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Frederick Douglass, Coretta Scott King, Dorothy Height, Father Mychal Judge and others.

Anyway, today’s reflections revolve around those moments all advocates face when you simply can’t believe the challenge you are facing is even there in the first place. For example, it boggles my mind that there is even a question about making sure polling sites are accessible to all. There is even a cluster of numbnuts who call themselves, I swear to God, the Lever Lovers. They seem to think  voting machines with levers are the only way to go, too damned bad if you are paralyzed. Boggles the mind, at least it does mine.

And then there were two moments this morning that boggled my mind in similar fashion.

First, I left a voice mail for Timothy J. Feeney asking why his company’s voice mail (call them yourself) has, for some time now, said they are under contract with the Department of Health whey they’re not and did he intend to continue to misrepresent his credentials to adults and children with disabilities.

Second, an email was sent to Maria Dibble, executive director of STIC (Southern Tier Independence Center) in Binghamton, NY, again asking her to explain why STIC, which is likely to be under contract with the New York State Department of Health for the Neurobehavioral Resource Project, plans to give the work to someone like Feeney.

There was a moment when I sat back, took a sip of my coffee, and shook my head. It struck me as somewhat unbelievable that any of us have to deal with someone prancing around pretending to have degrees they don’t have much less ask questions of a provider like STIC, that apart from this situation has a good reputation, why they plan to give work to the prancing ninny.

But, when I find myself shaking my head over perplexing challenges like these, I remind myself of the days people were made to ride in the back of the bus or drink and eat in specific locations because of the color of their skin. That was pretty unbelievable too.

So, the bad news? Bigotry marches on. Only bigotry would allow someone to think it is okay to be or to hire someone who is misleading an entire population of people.  The good news? Advocacy, including this advocate, marches on as well. I like my role models: King, Geronimo, Height, Mandela, Gandhi, Douglass, Wiesel.  Who might the role models for the bigots be? Maybe the likes of Bull Connor, Lester Maddox, David Duke, George Lincoln Rockwell, Adolf Hitler.

I like my role models better.

The First Brain Injury Summit – A Step in the Right Direction

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While there are some difficult realities surrounding New York State’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver, all attendees at the first Brain Injury Summit held in Albany this week agree that the waiver is far more a blessing than it is a curse. Nearly 3,000 adults who live with brain injuries live in the community because of the waiver, and that is good news. There are also no plans to end the TBI Waiver. Deep breath all.

The summit was recorded and once I figure out how to post it online in its entirety, it will be posted. Transparency is critically important.

The attendees at this week’s two-hour summit, hosted by the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, pledged in no uncertain terms to work together to address the challenges now faced by waiver participants, providers and, not incidentally, by the New York State Department of  Health which deals with the perpetual pressures faced by any regulatory agency, particularly during hard economic times.

Those who attended the summit were (in alphabetical order) :

  • Marie Cavallo, president, Brain Injury Association of NY State
  • Bill Combes, NY State Commission on Quality of Care
  • Karina Davis-Corr, Providers Alliance
  • Peter S. Kahrmann, Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition
  • Mark Kissinger, Deputy Commissioner, NY State Department of Health
  • Sandra Ryden, Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition
  • Mary Seeley, acting Executive Director, Brain Injury Association of NY State
  • Joe Vollaro, Providers Alliance

While I can’t and won’t speak for the others at this meeting, I can tell you that discussion was wide ranging, direct, deeply respectful on all fronts, and serious. It was and is not lost on any of us that there are real financial pressures on everyone that are not of our own making.

I did say that they number one complaint I hear from people who live with brain injuries (and people with disabilities of all kinds) is we get treated like we are children, and in some cases like we are barely human. Part of the reason for this is a rather global lack of understanding about the brain and brain injury thus putting the most well-intentioned among us in the untenable position of having to make choices and decisions while not fully understanding the role the brain injury is playing in the person they are working with.

I also said, and all agreed, that there were no villains at the table, and this includes the DOH, the most commonly villainized of all. The DOH is like any other large entity. Some of its workers are great, some aren’t. 

As a result of the summit the Providers Alliance will begin to meet with the DOH at a cadence both parties agree on, and that is good news all around.

I am not going to go into a slew of details at this point. But I can tell you this, and if you know me or know of me you’ll know this is true, I genuinely felt everyone at the table truly gave a damn. If I did not feel this way, I would tell you.

I would be remiss if I did not also mention that I raised the subject of Timothy J. Feeney being only “moments” away from being part of the neurobehavioral project again, a disgraceful and despicable reality no matter how you hold it up to the light. However, the “hands” that manipulated the course that is poised to allow a clinical predator like Feeney back into the mix were not at the table. It is not yet clear who pulled the strings, but it will be. Trust me. It is just a matter of time.

One piece of Feeney-related good news that came to light at the summit is this: waiver providers are free to choose not to work with Feeney. Therefore, providers who do choose to work with him are, by default, acknowledging they don’t truly give a damn about the people they serve.

The next summit is scheduled for December 10, 2010.

 

Living in a Land of Lemmings

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A myth about Lemmings, a small rather cute rodent, says they commit mass suicide by following each other off cliffs to their demise. While the myth is merely that, a myth, one wonders if there aren’t a large number of Americans who, like the myth lemmings, blindly (or stupidly) follow those who put the wealthiest among us before anyone else.

Case in point. The Obama administration along with a large number of Americans who have an ongoing relationship with reality as well as an ongoing relationship with democracy believe the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans should not continue while the tax cuts for the middle class should continue. Continuing the tax cuts for the wealthy (meaning if you make more than $250,000 a year) would, by the way, cost the country $700 billion in revenue. Congressional Republicans want the tax cuts for the wealthy to continue and polls say the Republicans are ahead in the polls? Have we lost our minds?

Those fighting for continuance of the tax cuts for the wealthy, including some Democrats like Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, don’t give a damn about the American people. The problem is, too many Americans are so gullible they don’t see this. The facts are undeniable. During the Bush-Cheney debacle the wealthy made out like bandits because they are bandits. Halliburton and others of their sleazy ilk filled their coffers on the backs of the American middle class and poor and, whether we want to face this or not, on the blood of our young men and women who were sent to fight in Iraq, essentially to benefit the oil companies.

The mind boggling thing is that the greed-based members of Congress are doing well in the polls? Are we Americans so bloody stupid and or so bloody gullible that we are unable to understand that in many many cases, the wealthy in this country got their wealth as a result the blood shed, literally and figuratively, by the American middle class and the American poor?

So, American or a Lemming?  You decide.

I’m an American.

Who Pressured NY DOH into Bringing Back a Clinical Predator?

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Someone must have pressured the New York State Department of Health to enter into a contract that allows a clinical predator back into the lives of brain injury survivors, their families and those who provide services to them. Some political favor or debt has called in, someone with some pull who clearly cares absolutely nothing about brain injury survivors.

I make this observation because it is the only thing that makes sense. There are some truly good people working at the DOH who really do care about brain injury survivors. But who among them (or anyone for that matter) can say with a straight face that they are comfortable with the department’s entering into a contract that allows Timothy J. Feeney, who by all accounts is nothing but a full-blown narcissist, back into the lives of those of us living with brain injuries.

There are some good people at the DOH and I dare say many would be forced to bite deep into their tongues in order to get themselves to say, “I think it is fine that someone who lies about his credentials to everyone provides services related to the TBI Waiver.” Don’t forget, Feeney and his company are already an approved provider of waiver services which makes one wonder what will be done about the obvious conflict of interest now that the clinical predators are back as the “neurobehavioral project.”  But Feeney doesn’t stop there. Let’s not forget that only this week Feeney was up in Washington County’s Fort Ann School District working with disabled children, never mind that school officials know his credentials are bogus. So much for putting children first.

A DOH official who  I will not name said the DOH has been assured by Maria Dibble, the executive director of the Southern Tier Independence Center, the recipient of the more than $250,000 contract that will hand the work to Feeney, that the provisions of the contract will be carried out in the highest professional manner. As presented, Ms. Dibble’s reassurance would actually be funny were it not so morally and clinically troubling – not too mention absent any relationship to  reality. How on earth can you provide quality services when you know the person providing them is lying about their credentials?

An email asking Ms. Dibble to explain STIC’s support for Feeney has gone unanswered.

Back to the question of the day. Who is pulling the strings? Is it solely a coincidence that Patricia Greene Gumson, a former DOH employee and Feeney supporter used to work at STIC? Sources have made it clear that both Ms. Gumson and current DOH employee Bruce Rosen had the reality of Feeney’s invalid college degrees brought to their attention and they did nothing about it.  There is no doubt that Gumson and Rosen did some admirable things over the years, no doubt at all. But this truth does not spare them accountability for supporting a clinical predator who likes to call himself “the angel of death” and has been known to be a bully. I’ve heard him refer to himself like this and the late Dr. Mark Ylvisaker often referenced Feeney’s penchant for this macabre moniker.

But back to the question at hand. Who pulled the strings for Feeney? To where or to whom does the corruption thread lead? One possible clue would be to watch which provider Feeney buddies up with.

Anyway, the truth will out.

 

Sometimes the Reader Says It Best

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I don’t know that I have ever posted a reader’s comment as a standalone piece before, but I am posting this one. This person has successful stated what is in the hearts and minds of thousands across the New York State and beyond right now, it accurately echoes what I and others heard for years about Feeney.

“A  new comment on your post "Responding to a Reader about Feeney’s Work":

In an era when accountability and responsibility are important and stressed by the NYS government and DOH they award contracts to a facility who hires someone lying about his credentials. That’s the message that DOH chooses to give to all other providers, staff and organizations serving people with disabilities. The OMIG and the state attorney should be involved not just now but for all these years that the self proclaimed "Dr Feeney" did his work. If DOH would have elicited feedback from providers, regional offices and participants alike, they would never allow him to work with survivors as part of this program and be part of a contract they award nevertheless.”

True that.