OLYMPIA, Wash. – Washington state’s largest psychiatric hospital has been ordered to pay several former employees who were injured by a violent patient.

A judge has ordered the Department of Social and Health Services, which operates Western State Hospital in Lakewood, to pay more than $2 million to the four female health workers.

One of the nurses who filed the lawsuit lost part of her ear when the patient vaulted over the nurses station.

The patient who attacked the workers and others had been civilly committed to the hospital in 2017.

Their lawsuit claimed hospital supervisors and the DSHS knew the patient repeatedly attacked women, but they failed to provide a safe environment.

After years of failing health and safety inspections, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services stripped the hospital in 2018 of its certification and federal funding.

It also lost its accreditation with the Joint Commission.

Neither has been restored.

State officials say they don’t plan to appeal the jury’s verdict.