Tag Archives: TBI

Break for Freedom – Day 6 (My Dad’s day)

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Day 6 – August 16, 2017 (My Dad’s day)

Back home 8:22 a.m. – A different day, in large part because today marks 48 years since my father, Sanford Cleveland Kahrmann, died. My father was and is the greatest gift my life has given me. Today’s walk, a truly sweet-morning mist in the air, was kind of magical. I reversed the walk starting yesterday so there is a nice uphill stretch, the soft-pain in my thighs from pushing the pace a welcome event.

As I was getting close to home, I remembered that 48 years ago, my father was alive in the morning. He was pronounced dead at 1:43 p.m. in St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City. Peritonitis took his life. The day he died, the world, for me, became a dangerous place to be. He was only 55. He was also my best friend.

I love you, Dad, my whole wide world. As Bob Dylan wrote: “And if there is eternity, I’ll love you there again.”

No power on earth could have stopped me from walking today.

*********************

For my father, Sanford Cleveland Kahrmann, (Feb. 20, 1914 – Aug. 16, 1969).

NY State Dept. of Health’s manipulation and deceit

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Manipulative and deceitful behavior by New York State Department of Health officials Mark Kissinger and David Hoffman will help you understand why the Center for Public Integrity recently gave New York a D-minus in a recent ranking of states and corruption.

I’ll get to the above referenced behavior in just a second. First, some background.

Governor Cuomo’s DOH seems determined to destroy the lives of thousands by ending the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver – established by the governor’s father, Mario Cuomo – and the Nursing Home Transition and Diversion Waiver by forcing waiver recipients into managed care.

Waivers provide services that both allow residents to remain in or return to the community as well as grow their independence as much as they can.

Now, Hoffman and Kissinger have been hosting a series of workshops they say are designed to make the transition run smoothly.  With only a few exceptions, the DOH workshop membership largely made of those who, whether they’ll admit it on the record or not,  are all for the DOH’s brutal transition plan.

That waiver recipients and their families and along with honest waiver providers have made it clear the waivers need to be protected has, so far, had little effect. That nearly all the witnesses at a an October 8 public hearing hosted by the Assembly Health Committee, Mental Health & Developmental Disability Committee, and Task Force on People with Disabilities warned the state’s plan would have catastrophic results, has not dissuaded the governor, or the DOH, or the many pawns in the DOH work group in the least.

Manipulation and deceit

I recently attended one of the DOH work group meetings. They are public meetings and members of the public, like me, can attend. When the public was asked to comment, some of us did.  A couple of weeks ago I sent Kissinger an email asking him to please send me a listing of who was on the DOH Workgroup. He forwarded the request to Hoffman, and then, Hoffman emailed me the list.

To my surprise, I and other members of the public were listed as members of the work group! Wrong. I emailed Hoffman and asked him of the mistake, pointing out that you can’t list members of the public as being members of the work group because it’s not true. And, they did it without asking permission.

I figured Hoffman (the DOH) would recognize the mistake and correct it. Wrong again.

When Hoffman responded he wrote. “Everyone in attendance is welcome to participate in comments and questions (as you saw) and so are included in the listing.” In other words, if you are a member of the public, and during the public comment portion of the agenda, say something, we’re going to list you as a member of the work group and we are going to do it without your permission.

Subsequent emails to Hoffman and Kissinger asking them to stop this deceit have resulted in a response the DOH has honed to perfection. Silence.

Now that I think of it, the Center for Public Integrity was generous when it gave New York a D-minus. Hell, I think giving  New York an F would be generous.

 

 

 

 

If you’re going to lie to me….

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I don’t ask for much in life other than respect, so, if you are going to disrespect me by lying  to me, the least you can do is make an effort to make it a good, show a little creativity for God’s sake.

I’ve decided to rummage around in my mind and, perhaps the minds of others, to develop some fun, at least for me, responses to people who lie to me so brazenly and obviously I don’t know whether to burst out laughing and ask them if they’re joking or simply stupid enough to think I believe them, or smack them upside their “head” with a verbal dagger that says, we both know you’re lying and you’re such a self-absorbed little twit you’re going to stand by your stench-rubbish anyway.

Anyone who knows me knows I have no ability to be silent when someone’s rights are being denied. I don’t care of it’s people with disabilities, people who are Jewish, African American, Latino, Muslim, veterans, members of the LGBT community, women, etc., etc., I’m not about to stay silent. People who know me also know it is very likely, particularly of you are a public official or someone in a position of authority, that I am going to expose your bigotry for all to see. 

All that aside, let me say there is a special place in hell for people whose claim to care about the rights of others is nothing more than lip-service smoke screens. A form of dishonesty so glaringly obvious I want to grab them by the throat and say, “Why not grow some backbone and say out loud that you don’t give a rat’s ass about these people and you just care about money and power?” 

What’s somewhat amusing is the feigned indignity performances I get to see when I call someone out for lying, for being a hypocrite. They put so much effort into their performance (without exception they’re lousy actors) I’m surprised they don’t snort and dribble out of the corner of their mouths, go into convulsions, and start speaking in tongues. Some feign astonishment to such I degree I expect them to allow their simian roots to take over and start pounding their chest.

Many of the lies I see these days  come from those who claim they are committed to protecting the rights of New York residents who live with brain injury disabilities. Since their commitment is limited to the effort it takes to say they are committed, the least they could do is make a commitment to develop their lying skills. I’ll probably catch them anyway, but at least catching them might pose a sliver of a challenge. However, exposing them will not.

So, here’s the thing, if you’re going to lie to me, make an effort, or give us both a break and shut up.

A coward named Cuomo

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Whether you liked him as the governor of New York or not, only a fool would doubt the courage of Mario Cuomo. He stood fast in his opposition to the death penalty (I oppose it too) even when he knew many disagreed.  He was courageous man. Not so his son, the current governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. All I know makes it clear to me he is a coward and, if you permit me a redundancy, a wimp.

Numerous sources tell me about the bullying he likes to do behind the scenes. Bullies are cowards. Able to act all tough and strong when there is no one to challenge them. Leave it to Cuomo  to run around New York playing like he’s John Wayne when inmates David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped. Notice Cuomo was always surrounded by state police. Easy to play tough guy when you have some real-life armed toughs as your escort.

And now, Cuomo has his Department of Health on the brink of pulverizing the lives of New Yorkers with brain injuries and the business stability of those who provide services to them under the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver Program. A waiver is a Medicaid reimbursement program that provide services so a vulnerable part of the population can live in the community or return to community life. It’s been in this state for 21 years now.  And under whose watch did it come to be?  Mario Cuomo’s, the Cuomo with the courage and integrity and compassion for others. Andrew’s DOH wants to shove the waiver into a form of managed care that will destroy the lives of New Yorkers with brain injuries, remove their housing subsidies, and get rid of their case managers. 

In other words, the son wants to destroy something great built by his father.

 

Open letter to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

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Dear Governor Cuomo,

I am a native New York who lives with a brain injury. I also head up the Kahrmann Advocacy Coalition. KAC is  grassroots advocacy coalition based in New York, that has, for some time now, tried to work in a cooperative manner with your New York State Department of Health to make sure New Yorkers with brain injuries receive the best possible care and, of course, have their equal rights both respected and protected. 

This not what New Yorkers with brain injury disabilities are experiencing from your DOH. Getting your DOH to work with us (or anyone for that matter) and protect the rights of NYers with brain injuries doesn’t work. Your DOH doesn’t care.

In fact, the dysfunctional and denial-of-rights-respect-and-dignity climate your DOH perpetuates includes the following: anyone providing care to New Yorkers on the state’s Traumatic Brain Injury Waiver Program is not required to have any expertise at all in the brain and brain injury. Those in your DOH who oversee the waiver are also not required to know a thing about the brain and brain injury, and yet, they are the one’s deciding who will or won’t get services as well as who will or will not remain on the waiver.

You are also aware, unless of course the DOH is making it a point to keep this secret from you, that New Yorkers placed in out-of-state facilities receive zero protection or oversight from New York State. Your DOH’s rote response to this is, we have no jurisdiction in that state, a response which is, on the face of it, true, but there is, and the DOH knows this, nothing preventing New York State from filing a complaint with CMS (Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services), the very entity that allows a state to have a waiver in the first place. And, NY does nothing to protect its own outside NY’s borders, even though millions of New York dollars are spent on their care.

Over the years the problem with those DOH staff involved in the lives of NYers with brain injuries has been pointed out, more than once but these people stay in place. People like Mark Kissinger, Maribeth Gnozzio, Lydia Kosinski, and Shelly Glock, to name a few, should be transferred or fired outright. Their mandate appears to be, Be as uncooperative with members of the public and as unsupportive of the rights of New Yorkers with brain injury disabilities as you can possibly be. I’ll give you an example which, in fairness to you, I know you are not aware of. Some months ago I filed a FOIL (Freedom of Information Law) request asking for the names of those in the DOH who were drafting the TBI Waiver Manual. Before filing the request I asked Mr. Kissinger directly via email and received no response. At any rate, a month or so later I received notice from the Records Access Office letting me know that the DOH (Mr. Kissinger) needed another 30 days  to gather this information.  After more than two months, I finally received the answer to who in the DOH was drafting the TBI Waiver Manual. You’ll never guess. Mr Kissinger and his staff. The delay in your DOH’s  response was deliberate.

Governor, I not only liked your father, I admired him and believe him to be one of the finer governors New York has ever had. At the moment, I do not feel the same about you. I sincerely hope that changes. Overtures earmarked for you are to no avail, they  get waylaid or referred elsewhere, which is why this letter to you is being sent publicly, in the open. This will not be the last letter, there will be more.

Now, you have the reputation, perhaps unfairly, of being  something of a bully. I don’t know if this is true or not. But in the event there is any truth to the reputation, please know  I am not worried about bullies. You see, Governor, I live with a brain injury. In 1984 I was held-up on the streets of Brooklyn and shot in the head at point blank range. The bullet remains lodged in the brain. I was able, somehow, to get back on my feet after getting shot. The two aforementioned realities make two things clear: I do not fear bullies and I do not doubt my willpower and tenacity. 

Sincerely,

Peter S. Kahrmann