Universal Health Services: Patients, Former Employees Tell of Danger, Abuses at Psychiatric Institute of Washington

September 26, 2025

Opened in 1967, PIW treats adolescents and adults struggling with substance abuse or psychiatric distress. But in recent years, the facility has faced alarming allegations of patient violence, staff misconduct, and systemic dysfunction. The watchdog group Disability Rights DC, the federally designated advocate for people with disabilities in the District, has found in a series of reports that those admitted to PIW are under near-constant threat of patient-on-patient attacks or sexual assault. Recent lawsuits have accused PIW of negligence in the rape of one patient and the death of another. In 2023, a PIW staff member was arrested and charged with sexually abusing a patient in his care. The following year, a group of teenage patients attacked an employee, took their badge, and escaped from the hospital. Last December, a ten-year-old patient who’d been admitted to PIW for depression reported being sexually abused at the facility.

One former health aide tells Washingtonian the violence and disorder inside PIW were so terrifying that she began developing nosebleeds before her shifts. “I mean, this place is actually trauma-inducing,” she says.

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