Mayor Anthony Williams’ health care task force has abandoned a massive $400 million hospital project in favor of several smaller urgent care clinics, mostly east of the Anacostia River, and an improved Greater Southeast Community Hospital.
“The task force voted to move in a different direction than the National Capital Medical Center,” said Robert Malson, a task force member and president of the D.C. Hospital Association.
Williams, who was briefed on the decision Wednesday, established the panel in April after pulling his support for the medical center, a joint District-Howard University project slated for the D.C. General site just south of RFK Stadium. The group was directed to consider how the city’s share of tobacco settlement dollars, $211 million, could best be used to serve the health care needs of east Washington residents.
“The mayor was very impressed with the task force presentation today and hopes to come up with a plan that reflects their work within the next couple of weeks,” said Vince Morris, Williams’ spokesman.
Malson said 10 of the 15 task force members recommended spending roughly $150 million on three new ambulatory care centers — one at D.C. General, one in Ward 7 and another in Ward 8. The balance, he said, would go to Greater Southeast on the condition that the long financially troubled institution be sold and converted to not-for-profit status.
Greater Southeast is the only full-service medical center east of the Anacostia, leaving some 252,000 residents without easy access to Level One Trauma care or a full-service hospital, supporters of the NCMC argued. Opponents claimed residents of Wards 7 and 8 needed better access to primary care rather than more hospital beds.
Howard opted out of the task force because the majority of its membership consisted “of people who have been active participants in an orchestrated effort to derail the NCMC effort despite broad public support for the initiative across the City,” a university administrator said in May.
Groups represented on the task force
» Most D.C. hospitals
» Citizens for the National Capital Medical Center
» D.C. Primary Care Association
» Medical Society of D.C.
» Unity Health Care Inc.
