Severe Deficiencies In Medical Care In DC Jails: A federal District Court lawsuit filed on April 24, 2023 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia alleges, in part:
The District of Columbia Department of Corrections fails to provide constitutionally adequate health care in its detention facilities. Plaintiffs, who are three individuals currently held in the Central Detention Facility and the Correctional Treatment Facility (collectively, “the Jail”), bring this action on behalf of themselves and all others detained in the Jail because they have been and continue to be seriously injured by the District’s deliberate indifference to their serious medical needs.
A significant percentage of incarcerated people suffer from serious chronic health conditions and infectious diseases including diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, tuberculosis, hepatitis C, cardiovascular disease, HIV, and AIDS. Indeed, people are often incarcerated precisely because of their unmet health care needs, including untreated mental health conditions and substance use disorders that disproportionally intersect with physical health conditions.
Health care is one of the primary responsibilities the District assumes for the approximately 1,400 people in its custody, and individuals confined to the Jail are entirely dependent on the District for their healthcare needs. Individuals in custody cannot obtain or manage their own medications, cannot schedule their own appointments, cannot seek an outside provider for specialty care, cannot ask for a second opinion, cannot access prescribed medical supplies, cannot ensure tests or follow up instructions are fulfilled, and cannot even access medical personnel without permission and assistance from correctional officers. They are therefore completely reliant on Defendant to provide necessary health care.
The District is deliberately indifferent to its obligation, and the Jail’s provision of health care is systemically dysfunctional, resulting in people with serious medical needs being unable to access necessary medical, pharmaceutical, and dental care.
Defendant is well aware of these systemic failures. The constitutionally deficient health care provided through the Jail’s system has been the subject of multiple lawsuits, a federal agency report, hearings of the D.C. Council, rulings by judges of both the D.C. Superior Court and this Court, as well as a multitude of grievances filed by individuals within the Jail itself.
Despite these repeated warnings, the District remains deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk of pain and suffering of people in the Jail, and continues to provide constitutionally inadequate health care in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments of the United States Constitution.
Plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief to compel the District to provide themselves and the class they represent with a constitutionally adequate health care system.
V.C. v. District of Columbia, Case 1:23-cv-01139. — Severe Deficiencies In Medical Care In D.C. Jails
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