Class Action Filed Over ‘Rapid’ Spread of COVID-19 Among Patients, Staff at DC’s Saint Elizabeths Psychiatric Facility

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The District of Columbia’s Department of Behavioral Health has wholly and egregiously failed to protect patients at Saint Elizabeths Hospital, a public psychiatric facility, from the COVID-19 pandemic, a proposed class action lawsuit alleges.

Filed by four Saint Elizabeths patients indefinitely and involuntarily committed to the District’s care, the 53-page lawsuit claims that the lack of emergency planning at the facility and on the part of the defendants—Department Director Barbara J. Bazron, Saint Elizabeths CEO Mark J. Chastang and the District of Columbia—has caused the rapid spread of COVID-19 among those residing in the hospital.

“Defendants’ conduct in admitting new patients, failing to properly test or isolate symptomatic and exposed patients, failing to quarantine patients with COVID-19, and failing to take other medically necessary precautionary measures is so egregious as to shock the conscience,” the lawsuit reads.

According to the complaint, the District of Columbia has reported 2,350 COVID-19 cases, with at least 81 deaths, as of April 15. The Department of Behavioral Health reported on April 16 that four Saint Elizabeths patients who contracted COVID-19 died, while 32 patients and 47 staff members have tested positive for the virus, the lawsuit says. 

The plaintiffs attribute the harrowing coronavirus numbers at Saint Elizabeths to the defendants’ “failure to follow professional guidance and appropriately plan and manage the facility” during the pandemic. Additionally, the lawsuit stresses that mental health disorders such as those experienced by Saint Elizabeths residents and the close proximity inherent to residing or working in such a facility makes the transmission of infectious diseases easier.

Despite clear guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), D.C.’s Department of Health and the District’s mayor, patients at Saint Elizabeths are unable to practice proper social distancing or receive timely tests when displaying coronavirus symptoms, the lawsuit claims. Further, Saint Elizabeths patients are not medically isolated from others residing in their unit, and those with known or suspected COVID-19 cases have generally not been transferred to other facilities at which they might receive appropriate treatment, the suit says. 

Per the case, Saint Elizabeths patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 are not quarantined from others. Further still, the facility has remained open for new admittances during the pandemic, according to the lawsuit.

Saint Elizabeths has come under fire in the past for its lack of emergency planning and “poor crisis management,” the case goes on to say. According to the suit, the defendants found out in October 2019 that the Saint Elizabeths water supply was toxic, which led to a water shut-off for 28 days. The lawsuit says the plaintiffs are among 270 patients with mental health conditions who were left without safe running water, access to bathrooms or showers and access to necessary treatment from September 26 through October 24, 2019.

“They still reside there and now face the threat of contracting COVID-19 as a consequence of Defendants’ failure to take appropriate precautionary measures,” the suit says, adding that the facility continued to admit new patients last fall despite the lack of running water and unhygienic conditions.

The case was filed in part by attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of the District of Columbia and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.  

The lawsuit stresses the need for emergency injunctive relief at Saint Elizabeths, alleging both the extended 2019 water outage and recent coronavirus outbreak have resulted in the defendants’ failure to provide appropriate medical and psychiatric care and therapies with which they’re charged to offer residents.

Among the relief requested by the lawsuit, the case asks the court to immediately halt admissions to Saint Elizabeths and issue a writ of habeas corpus ordering the release of a number of patients sufficient enough to allow the facility practice proper social distancing and provide all necessary mental health treatment.

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