St. Elizabeths Hospital could have potable water again by early next week, two weeks after officials discovered two types of dangerous bacteria in its supply.

Wayne Turnage, D.C.’s deputy mayor for health and human services, said Tuesday that contractors are working 12 to 14-hour shifts per day to replace the hospital’s nearly 900 faucets and chlorinate the facility’s water line — a task they hope to complete by Friday. If that work finishes on time, Turnage said, the system will undergo 48 hours of testing before potentially being cleared for use by Monday or Tuesday.

St. Elizabeths — D.C.’s only public psychiatric hospital — has been without potable water for nearly two weeks after a routine water test on Sept. 26 showed pseudomonas and legionella bacteria in the facility’s supply, forcing the hospital’s 273 patients and 700 employees to use bottled water for drinking, cooking and hand-washing. Pseudomonas bacteria can cause severe infections in those with compromised immune systems, while legionella bacteria can cause Legionnaires’s disease.

Turnage said there have been no reported illnesses directly connected to St. Elizabeths’ water issues; he noted that at least one patient had contracted pink eye, but said that hospital staff don’t believe the illness and water contamination to be linked.

District officials say the hospital has been provided with drinking water, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes on a regular basis to prevent the spread of infection, and will have 20 portable showers on site as of Tuesday afternoon. Toilets and laundry machines are still available, Turnage said.

“At this point, all you can do is fix the problem and try to determine if there’s something wrong with the system,” he said. D.C. Water is involved and says the water issue at St. Elizabeths is not part of a broader citywide supply problem.

Meanwhile, the hospital has continued to accept new patients. In a statement late Tuesday, the American Civil Liberties Union of the District of Columbia called on D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser to halt new admissions to the hospital and urged her to transfer St. Elizabeths’ patients to other local health facilities until its water has been deemed safe for use.

“What is happening at St. Elizabeths right now is a crisis,” said Monica Hopkins, the executive director of the ACLU of D.C. “We are especially alarmed that the Department of Behavioral Health and the Mayor’s office have failed to publicly acknowledge the emergency nature of this situation, and we are concerned by efforts to downplay the significant health and safety risks to patients and staff working in a hospital without running water.”

The organization also called on the D.C. Council to hold a public oversight hearing to determine how St. Elizabeths’ water became contaminated, what emergency protocols were in place to protect patients and staff, and how the District plans to prevent future incidents from happening again.

Washington City Paper first reported the Southeast hospital’s water problems. The facility has struggled with water problems in the past — a water main pipe ruptured in August 2016, contaminating St. Elizabeths’ water supply and prompting the hospital to shut off its water. The City Paper notes that patients and staff had to wait five days before they could wash their hands in the facility’s sinks and six days before they could drink out of the taps. Turnage says the same contractors who fixed the 2016 water main pipe are — RSC Electrical & Mechanical — are repairing the hospital’s system.

Once the largest mental hospital in the United States, St. Elizabeths has had a troubled 164-year history.

The facility has turned over parts of its campus to the Department of Homeland Security and various government agencies in recent years, and has faced scrutiny over the safety of its working conditions and allegations of patient abuse.

In a July report, advocacy group Disability Rights DC at University Legal Services laid out three cases earlier this year in which patients alleged to have been violently restrained or secluded by staff, violating hospital policy and D.C. law.

In January, a 71-year-old nurse was left with a bludgeoned face and two fractured ribs after a male patient got out of his restraints and beat her repeatedly with a telephone, according to The Washington Post. The attack prompted calls for increased security at the facility, as staff and union representatives accused hospital managers of being slow to handle requests for safer conditions.

This story first appeared on WAMU and has been updated with a statement from the ACLU.