MedStar Health is now allowing visitors and support persons for patients with disabilities into its hospitals and ambulatory locations throughout the region following a federal disabilities discrimination complaint.

Due to the pandemic, MedStar Washington Hospital staff was allegedly not allowing visitors or support persons for patients with disabilities, despite a stated policy that people with disabilities could bring in one support person. In September, William King, a 73-year-old with communication-related disabilities, his family, and Disability Rights DC attorneys filed a disabilities discrimination complaint against the health system with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights.

In July, King had open heart surgery at the hospital to address his stage four heart failure and was required to stay there to recover for almost two months. King’s daughter and support person, Valerie Turnquist, tells DCist/WAMU that she was not allowed to see her father in the ICU to help her father communicate with hospital staff.

“He thought we had left him in the hospital to die,” Turnquist says. “I wrote multiple requests to the heads of MedStar Health pointing out to them the policy on their website and asking them to make an accommodation for him, but all my requests were denied.”

Turnquist says she even asked a state senator to call hospital management on King’s behalf to see if they could make the accommodation. At least three ICU doctors also submitted a request to allow King to have a support person, but the hospital denied the requests, according to the complaint.

MedStar did not directly respond to questions from DCist/WAMU about these accusations, though they confirmed they changed their policies and practices in the wake of the complaint.

While her father was in the hospital for those two months, Turnquist says, his health began to dramatically decline.

“He was having delusions … He thought the hospital staff was trying to kill him … he would pull wires out of the wall,” Turnquist says. “That’s when the hospital staff had to tie him down to the bed.”

The family filed the complaint to “remedy MedStar Health’s repeated failure to provide reasonable accommodation to [King] by denying him in-person access to individualized communication supports and services, including a trained support person familiar with his communication needs, and other auxiliary aids and services.”

The complaint also says that guidance from the District of Columbia Hospital Association (DCHA) does not meet requirements under federal laws or non-discrimination guidance to ensure that people with disabilities, regardless of the nature of their disabilities, have one in-hospital support person. Maryland and at least 10 other states already have laws to ensure support persons for people with disabilities. Virginia is currently hearing similar legislation.

“Our guidance is a base framework for hospitals to build their policies around. DCHA cannot mandate, nor have the authority to dictate policies for our members,” a spokesperson for DCHA wrote in an email to DCist/WAMU. “Throughout the pandemic we have sought to work with stakeholders to address concerns, particularly around visitation, to ensure the needs of all patients are met and we are committed to continuing to do so.”

Lyndsay Niles, managing attorney with Disability Rights DC, says that COVID-19 exacerbated the need to end discrimination for people with disabilities in health care.

“There’s a need for changes in hospital policies District-wide to ensure that people with communication disabilities receive the same treatment as their non-disabled peers do,” Niles says.

In response to King’s complaint, MedStar Health expanded upon its visitation policy in December, allowing patients with disabilities two support persons (though only one may be present at a time). King and the hospital system didn’t reach an official resolution until this month.

“MedStar Health collaborated with the Office of Civil Rights in clarifying our COVID-19 visitation policy, which will appropriately allow support persons to accompany patients with disabilities into our facilities,” a spokesperson for the health system wrote in an email to DCist. “We are pleased to make these positive changes that will help us better serve our patients throughout this pandemic and beyond.”

The health system also provided guidance to support persons which requires them to check in at the front desk, wear a face mask, and be screened for COVID-19 and flu-like symptoms.

King is now out of the hospital and recovering at Turnquist’s home in Maryland. He makes weekly trips to outpatient services at the hospital and is allowed to have his daughter with him. King says he’s glad this case was resolved to “help other people with disabilities so that no one has to go through what I went through.”