Sunday, October 4, 2009

An Anonymous Phone Call From A Cell Phone Was All That Might Have Been Needed.

"Phillip Paul made a run for it while attending the Spokane County fair for a Eastern State Hospital field trip. Within minutes the hospital staff knew that he was missing, and they called the hospital to find out what their next step should be. That was when they were told not to call the police, and the length of time that Paul was missing continued to grow. They called again, and were told a second time that they should not call the police when they posed the question. This delay in the report created a two hour head start for Paul to be on the run." Seattle Examiner

Excuse me...but why would someone have to ask permission?

We should have a public review of this culture. Let's open this up. State employees and their union might want to have a say. They know where the problems exist.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

how many phillip pauls are out there?

Anonymous said...

Senator Roach is correct in that even the unions do have an interest in NOT covering up obvious mistakes.

What kind of culture operates like this? We know DSHS is deficient in their examination of childrens' issues; however it seems that the whole workplace is dedicated to CYA.

This is a supervisory, systemic, endemic problem.

Anonymous said...

Senator, the question posed is "who holds CPS accountable" has finally been answered in black and white for me. It is the Judiciary and the Judiciary knows it. They just aren't doing their job. How do I know? Because it is in their training found online through the UW.
At present, there are two things the Judiciary can do with any clout and they are to refuse to deny the department funding on a case if they have not done something in a timely manner and to hold the case workers accountable if there is perjury. The Judiciary doesn't want to do that because it will hurt the State. So, what needs to be done here is giving the judiciary more power and permission to deny funds while giving them the support they need to validate information given to them. This session my intent is to work with the judiciary committee on these two issues and come up with some solutions. This system is screwed up because the public doesn't know or understand and the community isn't involved because they don't understand the ramifications of Judicial inaction in this venue.
Jan Smith