This is Ridiculous!!

They say the wheels of justice move slowly but this is ridiculous. It isn't even the legal system, it is a State Board of Review but it must have been created by the same people who created our legal system. It takes forever and a day to get anything done from initial complaint to final discipline.

As many of you know, Keepers filed a complaint against a former therapist approximately 7 years ago. Hearing after hearing was postponed as he had this to do or that to do and each time he was granted a rescheduled hearing. Unbeknownst to him Keepers actually got stronger as time went on, and even though there were times they considered dropping it, either a) the Assistant Attorney General reiterated the importance of keepers standing up to this man or b) Keepers themselves regrouped and forged onward.

This past January the hearing finally occurred, and yes he had filed for another continuance, and this time Keepers told the Attorney General's office, it's now or never, we are not going to b eput off again. The continuance was denied, the hearing was held, and he did not show, so the hearing proceeded with all of the testimonies including Keepers.

At that point the Judge stated, he is guilty on these charges.

After the hearing the Assistant Attorney General told us how the process worked from here. We are sure we were not told all because they did not want to exasperate us further or truly did not realize the wheel needed a really good lube job! They now had 30 days to inform him of the findings, he had 30 days to rebut the findings then they got another 15 days to rebut his rebut and then it would go to a panel.... a panel who would review what has transpired up to this point!!

My God in heaven, if Judgement Day is anything like this it will take eternity to find out if we are upward bound or downward bound and that doesn't include continuances!

Anyway, we were told the final findings would be on line so we kept checking day by day, week after week, until I got a wee bit po'd and wrote a letter to the Attorney General asking how they could or would expect others to come forward and file complaints against abusive therapists when this was how it was handled? I never received an answer but within 2 weeks the decision was up on line, a matter of public record! Hoorah, finally, justice is served, yahoo...no...wait a sec...what about the discipline, the punishment for his God awful, not to mention abusive and incompetent (state's word, not mine) therapy? Will we get a letter, will it be public record also, what? Couldn't find anything so yesterday I sent another letter to the State Board asking how we will find out his discipline.

Get this....the board will have another hearing!!!! On December 7th!!!!! The hearing will be to determine his discipline, evidently he can debate his punishment against the board and then...and then...they will deliberate again! There will be no decision on his discipline on that day either. The email response said we would receive a letter from the Board outlining the disicpline levied against him, they did not say how long that will take.

So I ask you, is this ridiculous or not?

We are confident that by the time the discipline is official, available, after debate and such, it will have been at least a year since he was initially found guilty as charged. A year!!! Doesn't that seem to be a wee bit long? Supposedly this man is no longer sewing any patients, but what if he was? What if he is? That means that for 7 years he would have been able to see more patients, do more irreparable harm to others, and that to me seems ridiculous. Forget the 7 years from filing to hearing, once that hearing said he was guilty some sort of restriction should have been placed on his license immediately, it could have been temporarily suspended or some such method put in place to make his contact with any other patients cease until after a final decision was determined and in such cases why shouldn't it be moved up to the front of the line?

When I look at the States website I see eight, 8, cases or complaints against psychologists, psychiatrists since the year 2000, which is the earliest decision we can see. Thus I assume that complaint started in around 1993! Surely the board can speed up the process once the guilty or not guilty decisions come in. I understand they are supposed to be protecting their profession's reputation by reviewing complaints and investigating them, which they did a thorough job of, but for crying out loud let's have some consideration for the victims in these situations and I am not talking about the therapist, I am talking about the patients and their families who are seeking to stop therapists from abusing their power, and make therapy safe for others who need it, not make it a breeding ground for incompetence and egos that are in need of some really good therapy themselves.

If you really want to monitor and insure that your profession is clean and competent, no not competent, excellent, don't prolong what the patients have gone through to ridiculous lengths with your excessively long and endless red tape. That is not fair to the patients, they have already endured the worst your profession can offer, isn't it about time they received the best your profession can offer?

JM