- E.D.U.
stood for Enhanced Detoxification Unit. It was supposedly an "intensive
care" Detox with psychiatric services.
"E.D.U." services were mentioned everywhere
that Detox was mentioned, including the Salvation Army website and
government grant descriptions. Funding sources gave
the Salvation Army preference in response.
Even the H.R. Director thought Detox had a psychiatrist.
Here (.wav
format here)
(He
had just finished twisting something,
so he got snapped at.) There was a "Mental Health Adviser" who came sporadically to interview clients interested in Residential. He made it clear that he would not speak to "psychiatric" clients unless he was told to interview them for a Residential bed. See here. Even then, he offered no psychiatric services, only the interview. Very few clients were interviewed in Detox for Residential beds.
- Hundreds of people went through Detox in 2007. Not a single one received any mental health services.
From the Salvation Army website. here copied
"Clitheroe's detox unit was the only medically enhanced detox program in the state to offer specialized mental health services for individuals who are suicidal, and/or have co-occurring psychiatric disorders and require detoxification."
- Roughly
10 to
15 people a month were denied service only because
they were very
suicidal.
They would be told that Detox was full, even
though we had space. Few were referred to other
providers.
- One young man had shot himself in the head November '06, and survived. In '07 he decided to get treatment. He tried for some time to get in. His mother called almost hourly for a few days, until she figured it out. There was no reason to think that person was a current suicide risk, other than his history. There was good reason to think he would have been a good candidate for treatment.
The
financial benefit that Clitheroe got from banning people is roughly
outlined on the Statistics
page. The cost in human life could be measured by analyzing Detox
turnaway sheets. Roughly five to fifteen deaths a year could be
traced very
directly to the
Salvation Army directors' greed. (Many more deaths, indirectly)
It
was common for local nurses to send their
most ill patients without their medical records, so we would accept
them.
- Nurse "Frank" used to get in a fury regularly when a patient would be sent who was medically fragile, but had no paperwork from the hospital that sent them. It was common for me to arrive at work and he would be in the parking lot grumbling about 'those @#&* at Providence' who sent him a patient with no paperwork, [but the patient has (some condition) and Prov knows that we ban people like that].
- Usually, any person who had a semi-serious medical issue would be put in E.D.U. There was no practical difference between an "EDU" bed and a regular bed, except they were funded differently. EDU was just 4 regular beds separated by a curtain. Because EDU beds were less visible, problems with EDU clients more often went unnoticed.
- The "E.D.U." concept was financially lucrative for the Salvation Army, but it diverted a lot of money from organizations that might have actually provided those services.
The Salvation Army claimed, on it's website, that it treated "approximately 1000 people" per year in EDU. That Salvation Army page was on this website in December, and ... the Salvation Army took their page down. Since I couldn't prove that they had made the claim, I took the link off this website.
Jan 31 2008 I found a copy of the page from December 2007. Here is the copy with the original htm file name that was used on the Salvation Army website FCF2BDBDE741F13589256D7F0079039D.htm
They can claim that this was a typo... And that the Executive Directors statistics in her letter to the Anchorage Daily News were a typo... And that all the grant description information publicly available contains only typos, but... why are there no truthful statistics anywhere?
EDU did not serve "approximately 1000 people". It served well under 200.
All of Detox and all of Residential together did not serve 1000 people.
note: Part of my job was doing the monthly census in Detox. I am the person who best knows how many clients went through Detox and EDU in 2007. The numbers used by the Salvation Army to solicit funds were complete fabrications.
I was the only regular Detox employee with a 4 year degree, but I was forbidden from giving printed heathcare information that came from government websites and similar reliable sources. My degree is in Psychology.
The supervisor complained about a Naltrexone handout I had made available to clients, and then demanded that I ask her permission before giving any materials to clients. The Naltrexone handout was made by the Salvation Army, and intended for consumers.
