Tag Archives: john mccoooey

Days in Brain Injury Health Care – Part I

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“Remember,” a close friend of mine said when I’d just begun to work in the brain injury health care field around 1995, “This field attracts some of the most caring people and some of the most emotionally dysfunctional people you’ve ever met.”

My friend was right.  Some of the people I’ve met in the health care field over the years are the most selfless, hard working, compassionate, empowering and healing human beings walking the face of the earth. Others are some of the most controlling, selfish, heartless, greedy, demeaning, dishonest, self-absorbed and despicable people imaginable.

There are, however, some common pre-conceived notions that are not accurate. All people who work for regulatory agencies like the department of health are not heartless bureaucrats. I’ve met some genuinely caring people in the bureaucracy. Conversely, one cannot assume all people who work for advocacy organizations or health care providers are caring and compassionate.

It took me quite some  time, even with my friend’s rather prescient warning, to realize all this. I used to think that somewhere inside all people lurked a genuine sense of caring for others. Wrong. There are people who can come face to face with making a choice that will deny someone their right to heal, their right to the best possible treatment, not to mention their right to equal rights, and make the choice anyway. Choices like these can stem from several things, or a combination of several things: greed, the need to control,  hate, anger, and or the inability to realize the person or persons you are wounding are, just like you, full fledged human beings.

More than once over the years, twice actually, I’ve been taken in by charismatic business owners who convinced me they were oh-so-dedicated to helping people living with brain injuries gain or regain their independence. One such owner hired me and a friend of mine, Jimmy, we later realized, because I have  a brain injury and Jimmy has a spinal cord injury. We were, as Jimmy once put it, the token gimps, though neither of us realized it at the time.

I will not name this owner because I genuinely loved this troubled man and because he never did anything purposefully to wound my personal life, nor did he spread lies about me and seek to damage me personally and professionally.  Something that cannot be said for John Mccooey, owner of the Belvedere Brain Injury Program. 

Mccooey pretty much used me to help save a floundering program he’d inherited. We worked closely for years. I’d mistakenly thought we were friends. When Belvedere opened a substance abuse program and the program’s leadership began treating participants like dirt, I began advocating for the participants.  Not only were my warnings about the way participants were being treated dismissed, I would later learn Mccooey was calling DOH officials and others saying, Something’s wrong with Peter, something’s wrong with Peter, laying the groundwork for pushing me out because having an advocate around was no longer convenient for him. Never mind the way program participants were being treated.

Over the years I have met some amazing people too.

Judy Sandman, recently retired from the Brain Injury Association of New York State, was and is as committed to people with brain injuries as any human being on God’s green earth. Bruce Darling, the head of the Center for Disability Rights, is one of the most dazzlingly committed to equal rights human beings I’ve ever had the privilege to meet. Judy Purdell, a social worker who is a counselor for people living with brain injuries is the very essence of compassion, honesty and integrity. The same can be said for Dr. Maria Lifrak and her staff at Comprehensive Neuropsychological Services. Dr. Lifrak is  a neuropsychologist who, along with her staff and a former employee of hers, Kristen Weller, taught me more about the role my brain injury plays in my life than all others combined. 

Well, enough for now, there will be more to come about my days in health care.

The Hottest Places in Hell

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On the one hand you have New York State Department of Health officials who will proclaim their commitment to making sure brain injury survivors in New York receive the best services possible under the TBI Medicaid Waiver. But the DOH signs a contract with Southern Tier Independence Center in Binghamton knowing full well STIC will hand the work to a clinical predator like Tim Feeney who prances about proclaiming he has college degrees he doesn’t have.

Then you have STIC, the Southern Tier Independence Center and their executive director Maria Dibble who would no doubt proclaim their loyalty to people with disabilities, yet Dibble and STIC have no problem giving work to a man they know lies about his credentials to the very people STIC and Dibble claim to care about.

At least the DOH has enough respect for a consumer led advocacy coalition to sit down with us and while some of their position related to the Feeney debacle is, in a word, indefensible, there are other things the DOH is doing that are admirable. Not so STIC and Dibble and sure as hell not so Feeney, all of whom simply ignore requests for answers for the consumer led advocacy coalition.

I’m in the early strides of penning a book about my experience as a brain injury survivor as well as my experience working in the field. Feeney and his enablers are certainly great examples of yet another reality dramatically wrong with the health care system. Just as troubling are those who go along with the ruse. NYSARC again hiring Feeney for a presentation knowing damn well he is a fake.

Soon a round of interviews will begin, with elected officials, law enforcement officials, DOH officials and many more. Meanwhile, it appears time to do all I can to bring the media in on this. In addition to inflicting Feeney and his enablers on men and women (and for Feeney, children too) with disabilities, there is more than a quarter million in state dollars being paid to the contract that pays Feeney and his crew.

For any advocacy group to not take a public stand against this means, by default, they are standing for it.

As Dante Alighieri said, “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.”

 

The Trust Given Me

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I recently told New York State Department of Health Officials they can trust me, and they can. I told them what I have told others.  I will stand against anyone or anything that denies people their equal rights, and I will stand with anyone or anything that supports equal rights – for all people. It’s that simple.

In early 2008 I was pretty much tossed out of the Belvedere Brain Injury Program because I would not remain silent when I saw program participants denied their equal rights by the leadership of Belvedere’s substance abuse program. The owner of the program, John Mccooey said, in front of witnesses I might add, that while my financial relationship would not change, my relationship with Belvedere would change, meaning I had to leave. Mccooey continued to pay me for awhile short time later he said I’d told someone that he was paying me for my silence which is about as absurd as it gets given the reason I was tossed from the program in the first place was my very lack of silence. So, he used a lie as an excuse to stop paying me.

While I hear mixed reviews of Belvedere today, it is worth noting that Belvedere is the only brain injury waiver provider in the state that will not allow the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition, founded by brain injury survivors and their loved ones, to meet with program participants. As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words.

Anyway, there I was, from weekly paycheck to no income at all. I’d been an independent contractor so unemployment was not an option. Given that I had not been working a full-time schedule because of my brain injury, I sought public assistance, received a rush of help from friends, began monthly trips to a food pantry, and went back on disability and my state’s TBI Waiver which, while it has its problems, is a blessing to nearly 3,000 people.

Back then some of the people who love me said things like, We know you care and we know you don’t like it when people are being denied their rights, but you’ve got to keep your mouth shut sometimes so you can keep your job, a roof over your head.  I can’t. Not then. Not now. Not ever. Who am I to put my income over another person’s right to their equality? I look at the sacrifices made by others in the battle for civil rights and when all is said and done, losing a job or a home is not that high on the trauma scale, not when others have paid for their work with their lives.

Not long after the Belvedere blow, I met up with my friend Eric Mitchell. Eric and I worked together at Belvedere and had become close friends. I told him what happened with Belvedere and said, “At least I wasn’t assassinated.” Eric paused, said, “In a way you were,” and gave me a hug.

There are quite a few brain injury survivors along with their loved ones who trust me to stay loyal to them, to not fold when their equal rights are threatened, no matter the cost.  I will not betray their trust. Their trust is one of life’s greatest gifts to me; the fact the above referenced coalition is now the largest survivor-led coalition in the state is testimony to this gift.

I was recently asked if, as a human rights advocate, I ever get scared. Yes,  I do. All the time. But I agree with Nelson Mandela’s take on courage. He said, “I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

So yes, the DOH and others can trust me. They can trust that I will always stand up for equal rights and stand against any force that seeks to deny equal rights.

TBI Waiver’s New Beginning Maybe – Part II

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The New York State Department of Health deserves enormous credit for its consistent willingness to interact with the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition. Any notion some of us  may have had that there would be resistance to interacting with us was quickly erased by DOH officials, and in  discussions with KAC members subsequent to my  recent meeting with DOH officials, the gratitude is very real.

Assurances that Timothy J. Feeney’s will not have the contractual authority he had under previous contracts (there were three five-year contracts, one with STIC who subcontracted the work to Feeney and two directly with Feeney’s company)  were deeply appreciated, especially since DOH officials fully acknowledge that two of Feeney’s college degrees are not valid (he does not have a valid masters degree or a valid PhD).

There are some things that need to kept front and center and in focus. While it is true that the DOH is entering into a contract with STIC (Southern Tier Independence Center in Binghamton, NY) and not with Timothy J. Feeney’s companies, School and Community Support Services Inc. and School and Community Support Services (one is for profit, one is not-for-profit), the DOH entered into the agreement knowing full well STIC would be giving  Feeney they work and that Feeney will be misrepresenting his credentials when he does the work the contract calls for.

One of the things that has been again made clear to me over the past 24 hours is this. Survivors of brain injuries and their families and quite a few providers are disgusted that anyone would knowingly enter into a contract knowing the contract’s deliverables will be provided by someone who will be clinically misleading the very people he is supposed to be helping.

What would officials say when  the mother of a brain injury survivor who asks, “Why is it okay for my son to be treated by someone who says he’s a doctor when he’s not?” Would anyone actually say, That’s not the point, his educational credentials are not the point, the contract deliverables don’t involve that.

What would they say to the wife who asks, “How is it that the state pays a couple of hundred thousand dollars to someone knowing that Feeney does have the credentials he says he does? Would they be okay if he was treating their husband?”

What would they say to the Vietnam Veteran who said, “I’ve been through enough shit in life, they expect me to listen to this fraud and they’re paying him?”

These are real questions from real people. They deserve answers. The answer they feel they are getting is that they do not deserve the best. Giving someone clinical power in the lives of others knowing that he or she is willfully misleading them is inexcusable.

However, it is in a very real way reassuring to all to hear that Feeney will not have the power he did before. And, it was clear to me that all the officials that I met with will not tolerate any intimidation tactics whether they be aimed at consumers, families or providers. Officials made a good point too when they said people have to report these tactics, file complaints. They were clear about this, and I believe them.

Tim Feeney, John Mccooey & NY State DOH

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Sources say Belvedere Brain Injury Program owner John Mccooey may be behind an effort to get Tim Feeney another contract with the New York State Department of Health to again oversee the Neurobehavioral Project for the state.  State officials are looking into the matter. Belvedere has sites in Albany and Syracuse.

Tim Feeney had three consecutive five-year contracts with the NY DOH to oversee the Neurobehavioral Project despite the fact his doctorate and masters degrees are bogus, not recognized as valid anywhere in the world. In his last years under contract, Feeney and Mccooey worked closely to develop a substance abuse program for Belvedere that, sources say, continues to deny participants choice and in some instances locks the doors when workshops begin, telling participants they will not be allowed back in if they have to use the bathroom or go for a drink of water.

Feeney is currently under contract with the Fort Ann School District in Washington County New York  to work with children, including children with disabilities and is again representing himself as Dr. Feeney or Tim Feeney PhD. School officials, including Fort Ann School Superintendent Maureen VanBuren, have been told about his bogus degrees but it seems they are continuing to work with Feeney anyway, the welfare of the children be damned.

Some Background

On more than once occasion I have been asked what led me to investigate and  Feeney’s credentials, or, as it turned out, his lack thereof.  Some think it is because when I was forced out of Belvedere, John Mccooey said Feeney made him do it. First of all, by the time Mccooey told me that he had about as much right to claim the mantel of honesty as Willie Sutton had to a job as bank manager. Mccooey’s finger pointing at Feeney is not what led me to investigate the on again off again rumors that Feeney’s credentials were, in a word I feel comfortable using in this blog, bullshit. What led me to investigate his credentials was a change in his, Feeney’s, pattern of behavior.

One of the things they teach you in behavior management is that a change in a person’s common behavior pattern means something. In 2007 it had become clear that my advocating for the rights of those participating in Belvedere’s Albany substance abuse program was going nowhere. Participants were being talked to in degrading ways by Belvedere employee Michael Loiselle, they were being denied choice as provided for in the regulations and in their rights as human beings, and John Mccooey was doing nothing about it. At the time I had a close relationship with Pat Green Gumson and Bruce Rosen in the Department of Health. I reached out and let them know that there were real problems and something needed to be done. Feeney and his crew were sent in to deal with the problems. Historically, when the DOH caught wind of participants being denied their rights, they corrected things. Not this time.

This time the punitive rights-denying behavior of Belvedere was supported. There had been a change in Feeney and the DOH’s  normal pattern of behavior.

And so now we are looking at the possibility of Feeney being reinstated and a dysfunctional company owner named John Mccooey being involved.

Equal Rights Will Prevail

Yes, it is disheartening to encounter people like Mccooey and Feeney who apparently see people with disabilities as a way to make money and make themselves feel big and strong (both men are wimps, by the way). But do not give up. There are in fact, some good people in the New York State Department of Health and there are some truly good people in the advocacy community who offer more than simply lip service to the cause of equal rights. I can tell you that in those rare moments when I get down, I remember Mandela, King, Elie Wiesel, Simon Wiesenthal, Rosa Parks, Gloria Steinem and countless others; God knows they paid heavier dues than I have. So no, I will never give up and I hope you won’t either.

Make Your Voices Heard

If you share my concerns you can make your voices heard by calling the complaint line at the Brain Injury Association of NY State – 518-459-7911 – the Commission on Quality of Care at 518-388-2887 or the DOH at 518-474-6580 or you can write to the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition at kahrma1@gmail.com

Keep the faith.

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