Elderly Man Killed By Fellow Patient At Washington DC Psychiatric Hospital

A 65-year-old man who was being treated at Saint Elizabeths Hospital in Southeast D.C. was killed Wednesday, March 9, after a fight with a fellow patient, according to the District’s Department of Behavioral Health.

David Dowdell died in a fight at the psychiatric facility of the hospital in the 1100 block of Alabama Avenue Southeast, early Wednesday morning.

The elderly man was found in "a secure area of a hospital, unconscious and unresponsive, suffering from apparent trauma," during a routine room check, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) confirmed.

Another patient at the facility, 28-year-old Charles Lee was arrested and charged with first-degree murder, police said.

Both the victim and the suspect had recently been transferred to the hospital from the D.C. jail for court-ordered psychiatric evaluations, NBC Washington reported.

Saint Elizabeths Hospital is "committed to a safe, therapeutic environment for individuals with serious mental illness who need inpatient treatment to recover," the D.C. Department of Dept. of Behavioral Health said in a statement.

"Per our protocol, Saint Elizabeths will conduct an internal investigation to determine whether all safety procedures were followed. We are providing emotional support to patients and staff," they wrote.

In another similar incident, patients at the Institute Of Kidney Disease and Research Center (IKDRC) hospital in the Indian state of Ahmedabad witnessed an ugly fight between an estranged doctor couple on Tuesday, March 8.

Dr. Anand Chandak (45), a surgeon at a hospital in the state of Rajasthan, was at the IKDRC to meet his younger son who had been admitted to the hospital for the treatment of a rare genetic disease.

Ugly scenes unfolded at the hospital when Anand confronted his estranged wife, Dr. Sheetal Chandak, a pathology doctor at IKDRC, after finding her alleged lover hiding in the bathroom of the room his son was admitted to.

However, the lady doctor denied all the allegations. She later told the police that she had asked the man, identified as Tushar Parmar, who works in the IT department of the hospital, to get medicines for her son. She claimed when Parmar came to the room with the medicines, her husband also arrived at the hospital at the same time.

Both of them have filed complaints against each other at Shahibaug police station following the incident.