I apologize for the lack of organization - I have been working on this for more than a year and was not quite ready to send it. My diminished life expectancy and other developments have made it more important to send it to you now.

About three years ago I was hospitalized at the Arkansas Continued Care Hospital in Jonesboro (ACCH). I escaped with my life only because my family members became concerned and removed me over the strenuous objections of the doctor. I do not just suspect that others have not been so fortunate and have perished there due to the malfeasance of the operators - I am 100% convinced of it.

I have prepared material for the state medical boards and my insurance company and will be sending those at the same time this letter is sent. I intend - with the assistance of a lawyer - to make a criminal complaint against the doctor responsible and the CEO of the hospital. I am also 100% convinced that the treatment which almost resulted in my death and left me permanently disabled involved deliberate fraud.

I believe that you should look at deaths at that hospital during the few years it has been in business and investigate any suspicious (less than average life expectancy) deaths. This is a long-term care (primarily rehabilitation) facility and deaths should be extremely uncommon as it does not provide critical care - patients at risk of death should be sent back to a critical care hospital. Deaths at a hospital of that type should be rare and I am aware of almost two hundred in the few years it was in operation. Many of them were well below average life expectancy and some were quite young.

Thus it is even more regrettable that I was unable to do this earlier. Unfortunately the first year or so after I left the hospital I was nearly an invalid unable to live alone and the next year was only marginally better. During the past year I have investigated the circumstances of my experience and the hospital and its operators.

During my investigations I became aware that the CEO of ACCH was one James Cox - I have not been able to find a middle name or initial. Later I learned that that same James Cox had been the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Ascent Children's Health Services (ACHS). ACHS was a Jonesboro business with facilities in several cities in northeast Arkansas and specialized in day care and other services for 'special needs' juveniles with various (mostly mental/psychological) disabilities. Their revenue seems to have been almost entirely Medicaid.

In 2018 ACHS was closed soon after the death of a young child due to the negligence of its employees. If you are not familiar with the case I can provide information from the news reports of the time. You may or may not agree with my belief that the people most responsible for the death of that child were never punished If they had been James Cox would not have been the CEO of ACCH and probably would have still been in prison. Perhaps ACCH would have been just as bad or worse but Mr. Cox would not have been in charge.

ACCH recently closed and I have learned that the hospital is being acquired by another health care company (Methodist Family Health) which thus far seems to look much like the Ascent Children's Health Services I referred to. I suspect that this may be the operators covering their tracks as the hospital is the defendant in several lawsuits - some alleging wrongful deaths. If they have been engaging in fraud or other unlawful conduct investigating it will now be more difficult if not done soon.

At sixty-eight years of age and - my description of myself should convince you that I am relatively intelligent and mentally stable - I am not so naive as to believe that outside of individuals such as doctors and nurses and some small organizations money is not the sole motivation of all health care businesses - they are after all businesses. I am also aware - as you surely are - of regular exposures of large-scale abuses which harm innocent patients. Whether it is because of incompetence or fraud or both innocent people suffer and often die because of the greed of others.

I would suggest that it has happened here in northeast Arkansas for many years now. ACHS put profit ahead of its obligations to safeguard its charges. ACCH put profit ahead of its patients - my insurance company paid them around a million dollars for my 'care' when the actual care I needed was routine and relatively inexpensive.

According to press releases Methodist Family Health plans to "remodel the hospital into an acute, 70-bed psychiatric facility for children under the age of 18."

I have been in that hospital and am familiar with the history of the facility. It is a 44-bed hospital (I believe it is fifty years or more old) and was in a disgraceful condition and while I have not been back see no reason to believe it has been improved. To make a 70-bed facility the size would have to be almost doubled and would cost millions of dollars and would take close to a year to accomplish. If it is open again without such modifications in a matter of weeks or months I would see no reason not to believe that it is is not yet one more scheme to exploit vulnerable children for money.

In my letter to the state medical board I state:

Dr. Copeland, charged with the care of a functional and healthy human being in need of routine care to heal an injury, turned that human being into a near invalid. Dr. Copeland is a menace to any patient consigned to his care.

I have little time left to live - a year or two perhaps but in my condition I could die tomorrow - and have no reason to fear retribution if I offend important, wealthy and powerful people. I believe that a proper investigation of these matters can prevent further injuries and deaths to patients and especially to children. What parts of this fall within your purview I don't know but something needs to be done. I wrote to the two reputable hospitals in Jonesboro and described my experience (all ACCH patients were consigned by other hospitals) but never received a reply. I asked them and I ask you - these sorts of things happen regularly elsewhere. Must we allow them to happen in Arkansas?