This case challenges the failure of the District of Columbia government to protect some of its most vulnerable patients from back-to-back crises at their treatment facility: first, an extended water outage in the fall of 2019, and second, the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020.
For more than three weeks, Saint Elizabeths Hospital, an inpatient mental health facility operated by the District, did not have clean running water. The crisis caused the facility to drastically reduce the availability of therapy sessions and cease providing some medical care altogether.