The District of Columbia must substantially upgrade its care of mentally ill patients at the troubled St. Elizabeths Hospital under a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, officials announced Monday, though the fixes are expected to take years.
The settlement, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District, comes in response to a critical 2005 Justice Department investigation into patient treatment and care at the city’s mental health hospital in Southeast. It sets out a series of initiatives to confront “widespread deficiencies in patient care,” Mayor Adrian Fenty said during a news conference. It also allows the District to avoid protracted litigation and sets the city on a course to developing the hospital into a “world-class facility,” he said.
But D.C. leaders said not to expect major improvements immediately at the 529-bed facility, which the Justice Department found “fails to provide its patients with a reasonably safe living environment.”
“It’s not instant cocoa,” said D.C. Council Member David Catania, who oversees the hospital as chairman of the health committee. “You can’t just add water and poof. But we’re making a substantial commitment of resources.”
The court settlement calls for full assessments of patients by a clinical team and individualized treatment plans; limitation on short-term seclusion or restraints to only the most serious circumstances; additional staff to provide appropriate supervision;updated fire safety and evacuation plans; and improved reporting of incidents and allegations of abuse and neglect.
Patrick Canavan, the hospital’s chief operating officer, said the agreement “focuses us like a laser beam on the right things so that we never get to that point” of federal receivership. A compliance officer will soon be hired to oversee the effort.
“Patients like those at St. Elizabeths are among the most vulnerable in our society, and the Justice Department is firmly committed to the vigorous protection of their rights,” said Wan J. Kim, assistant U.S. attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, in a statement.
The care of St. Elizabeths patients has been the subject of a lawsuit filed in 2005 by University Legal Services Inc., a nonprofit human rights organization. On April 9, the group filed its most recent motion for declaratory judgment, arguing: “Despite Defendant’s repeated promises since 2004 that it is addressing the myriad problems at St. Elizabeths Hospital, patients there continue to face great risks to their safety, and Defendant continues to provide inadequate psychiatric and medical care in an environment that dehumanizes patients.”
