A hospital that has served D.C. residents for six decades will shut done soon as a new hospital opens about a mile away.

United Medical Center in Southeast D.C. will close its doors for good April 15, the same day Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health opens.

“It is bittersweet, because UMC has been such an important part of this community for such a long time,” D.C. Deputy Chief Financial Officer Angell Jacobs said.

United Medical stopped admitting new patients this week. Ambulances no longer take patients to UMC. Walk-ins are still allowed, but patients who need in-patient care are being taken to another facility.

“For any patient that when we get to the 15^th still needs hospitalization, those will be the patients that will be transferred to a different facility of their choice,” said.

Hospital leaders told News4 alternative care will be available for longer-term patients.

The adult emergency room will close for good April 12. The children’s ER will stop accepting new patients at 11 a.m. April 15.

“Children’s National will begin providing services at the new Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center on April 15 at 12:01 a.m. … allowing overlap to make sure there’s no interruption of pediatric services,” Jacobs said.

UMC, the city’s only hospital east of the Anacostia River, served the community for 60 years.

D.C. leaders decided to close the hospital in 2019, citing mismanagement and financial issues.

The closure was expected to result in hundreds of layoffs. Officials say staff members have been assisted in finding new jobs.

“I know they have been looking for employment elsewhere, and our human resource department has been helping them with, for example, resume writing ‘cause a lot of the staff have been here for many years,” UMC CEO and Chief Nurse Officer Dr. Jacqueline Payne-Borden said.

Cedar Hill is located on the old St. Elizabeths Hospital campus in Southeast. It’s a privately operated hospital with much-needed state of the art health care, including emergency, trauma, behavioral health, and maternal health and delivery services.

“Despite the fact that the sunsetting of UMC is approaching, we are very excited about the new facility that will be available to patients in the community,” Jacobs said.

Cedar Hill will be the first full-service hospital to open in the District in more than 20 years.

Cars driving past the Kennedy Center witnessed an unexpected liftoff on Thursday, after a 30-foot-tall Mars balloon escaped its moorings and rolled from its place outside the arts center onto the highway.

The planet famous for its rovers went roving itself, departing the Kennedy Center’s REACH plaza and rolling east onto the roadway.

The balloon is part of the Kennedy Center’s “Celestial Bodies: Earth, Moon, Mars” exhibit, which allows viewers to wander the grounds and examine inflatable models of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars. At night, the balloons are illuminated from within, making for a fun photo-op.

After Thursday evening’s out-of-this world viral moment, the Mars balloon was quickly retrieved from the highway and returned to the Kennedy Center.

Commenters on social media appreciated the balloon’s meteoric journey, with many cracking jokes about recent political events.

“We understand Mars.. we feel the same way,” said one user.

“Good for her,” said another.

No balloon-related injuries were reported as a result of the incident.

Fresh off announcing a new effort at cutting juvenile crime, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser expressed frustration Thursday over the fact that D.C. is still waiting for congressional action that would allow it to spend $1 billion in its 2025 budget.

Last month, the Senate passed a measure that would allow the District of Columbia to choose how it spends the funds in its budget, reversing a piece of the budget bill that gave the federal government control over how D.C. spends its money. D.C. officials said that restriction would limit them to their 2024 levels — effectively a $1 billion funding cut.

While the Senate’s “fix” to the original, more restrictive spending plan has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, it’s not clear when the House will get to work on the issue or whether House members will try to tack on other legislative language to the bill.

Standing at a podium at an outdoor news conference, with D.C. police officers behind her, Bowser told reporters, “If our budget doesn’t pass and we have to look more closely at overtime spending for public safety officials, that will have an impact on crime!”

“We need to have our budget issues resolved at the Congress, and we need it done as soon as possible,” she added.

Bowser also referenced the Department of Government Efficiency, a team within the Trump administration that’s tasked with slashing federal spending, and the cuts to a wide swath of federal agencies.

“We want everybody to be treated fairly, and any personnel actions to happen legally,” Bowser said. “And, quite frankly, we think that the pace of these separations has to stop. It has to slow down so that all of those things can be done properly, or rethought completely.”

Bowser said what happens when things “are not well thought through, is that some of the consequences are unintended, but they’re predictable.”

The U.S. House of Representatives is back in session on April 7.

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