Potable water returns to DC psych hospital sued over outage

WASHINGTON – A public psychiatric hospital in the nation’s capital that went weeks without potable water is facing a federal lawsuit.

News outlets report the American Civil Liberties Union and others are suing St. Elizabeths Hospital and the District of Columbia.

The city announced late Wednesday that water was being restored after being cleared of bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease. The bacteria was discovered during a routine test last month and service was immediately stopped, leaving hundreds to rely on bottled water and wipes.

The lawsuit on behalf of four patients alleges that their care and conditions were compromised during the outage. Patients continued to be admitted during the outage. It says toilets overflowed before portable ones were made available and showers were replaced with wipes and buckets of water.