July 7, 2003
Mr. Jim Gilday
Community Mental Health Services
1380 Howard Street, 5th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
FAX 415-252-3015
Dear Jim Gilday,
In 2001, this patient filed a grievance with Community Mental Health to expunge her civil commitment, because it was based upon false information. Her medical records contain so many errors; they fail to serve their purpose as accurate documents for legal, employment, diagnostic, or treatment purposes. The only form of redress possible in this case is an addendum to the records.
The most efficient way to correct the records is to require each hospital employee to acknowledge his own errors in writing. This patient has filed formal grievance complaints against Dr. Emily Lee, Dr. Mark Sexton, and Dr. Mabel Jung, so each has been sent a personal copy. Norma Block has copies of the document evidence. Since licensed professionals retain access to records they wrote, consent forms are unnecessary.
This patient, always, had evidenced based insight into her own condition at all times, and reported it to every provider. The hospital staff made the decision to confine and treat this patient against her, highly informed, and expressed will. They bear full responsibility for the ramifications of their treatment decisions. Since they psychologically scarred this patient for the rest of her life, the very least they can do is acknowledge that false allegations shaped their treatment plan.
Community Mental Health must respond to a case with evidence this compelling. This patient has always been held to academic evaluation standards. How many mistakes are permitted, per patient or per professional, to qualify as normal and customary care? How many times are doctors allowed to lie before they are reprimanded? How many doctors are allowed to lie in one civil commitment case, before it becomes a breach of trust? If every single staff member simply corrects his own errors, the validity of the records will be self evident to anyone. Licensed medical professionals, with unbridled authority to risk patients lives with death and disfigurement, should be held to same standards as freshman high students. They fail when their papers contain mistakes.
Licensed medical professionals in the Community Mental Health System seem to feel they are too important, or have too much status to be held to ethical standards or condescend to answer letters from their malpractice victims. Since San Francisco General Hospital, California Pacific Medical Center, The Center for Special Problems, Community Mental Health, The Department of Psycho Social Medicine, and South of Market will all retain records with Dr. Lees perjuries, Dr. Nygrens false allegations, Dr.Sextons persistent false beliefs, and Dr.Lanskys fabrications, each must retain the appropriate additions to the records. A hard copy of this letter and at least one hard copy report has been sent to each facility, and the others will be faxed. Can anybody compel San Francisco medical royalty to follow California laws, add the reports to this patients records, and notify her when this has been done?
Most Sincerely,
cc: Norma Block, Patient Advocate
Cecile Shwanke, San Francisco General Hospital
Melissa Bloom, Center for Special Problems
Bramm Fridlander, California Pacific Medical Center
Mabel Jung, South of Market
