Howard University will not participate in a task force established by D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams to find alternatives to the National Capital Medical Center, a $400 million hospital the school had agreed to build with the city until Williams yanked his support.
With both sides having backed out, hope has run out for the proposed 250-bed hospital, medical office building and research laboratory.
In a letter to Gregg Pane, director of the D.C. Department of Health and chairman of the task force, a Howard administrator wished the District “great success” in its endeavor to install Level One Trauma facilities east of the Anacostia River.
Dr. Victor Scott, senior vice president for health sciences, said the task force membership is overwhelmingly anti-hospital and “three years work apparently has now been put on hold.”
“With its membership so skewed as to suggest that the likely outcome is predetermined, the university believes that adding one Howard representative to the panel seems unlikely to produce meaningful consultation,” Scott wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.
Williams had been a vocal supporter of the medical center until only recently, when he backed out, citing diminished D.C. Councilsupport and the hospital’s potential impacts on Greater Southeast.
Hospital timeline
» June 2001: D.C. General Hospital is closed
» November 2003: Council orders negotiations with Howard for a new hospital
» January 2004: Howard and District sign memorandum of understanding
» May 2004: Council adopts memorandum of understanding
» January 2006: Howard and District sign exclusive rights agreement
» April 2006: Deal collapses
