New Ward 8 urgent care opens in effort to expand health care access

A brand new pressing care heart that opened Monday in Ward 8 is step one in a bigger effort to deliver a complete well being care system east of the Anacostia River.

The massive image: D.C. has put $375 million towards upgrading well being care companies in wards 7 and eight, aimed toward concentrating on well being disparities within the predominantly Black, underserved wards the place greater than 154,000 residents stay.

• The brand new, $1.8 million Cedar Hill Pressing Care Facility, named in a nod towards Frederick Douglass’ close by property, is only one piece of the plan.
• It is the one pressing care in that space serving adults.

Zoom in: Charges of most cancers, together with breast, liver, and colon, are a lot increased amongst wards 7 and eight residents in comparison with the remainder of the District, per a 2020 report by the town.

• A 2020 Georgetown College examine additionally discovered that the life expectancy of residents in wards 7 and eight, the place greater than 90% of residents are Black, was 12-15 years decrease than in different, predominantly white wards.
• For instance, the life expectancy of residents in Ward 8 was 72, in comparison with 87 in Ward 3, which incorporates the Palisades, Cleveland Park, and Chevy Chase.

Zoom out: Along with new pressing care facilities in each wards (Ward 7’s is anticipated to open on the finish of 2023), the multi-million greenback well being care funding will deliver 136 beds to a brand new hospital on the St. Elizabeths East campus in Ward 8.

• It is going to embrace a trauma heart, ICU, girls’s well being care companies, and a neonatal unit operated by Youngsters’s Nationwide Hospital.
• Final month, United Well being Companies, which can personal and function the hospital in partnership with George Washington Medical College Associates, funneled one other $17 million into the power so as to add a fourth ground.
• It is anticipated to serve residents in each wards.

The brand new hospital will change the United Medical Heart, the one hospital in Ward 8, which has been entangled in monetary mismanagement for years. In 2018, it was pressured to shut its obstetrics ward after regulators discovered “harmful errors.”

• UMC is ready to shut when the brand new hospital, referred to as the Cedar Hill Regional Medical Heart, opens in early 2025. Deputy Mayor for Well being and Human Companies Wayne Turnage, who’s on UMC’s board, tells Axios the hospital will quickly start the method of phasing down some operations primarily based on adjustments in affected person hundreds, however the hospital will stay totally useful till Cedar Hill opens its doorways.

What they’re saying: Propping up the brand new well being care system will assist get individuals in “early and infrequently, in a prevention mode. So individuals will not delay care,” Turnage tells Axios.

• Turnage says the system’s timeline is transferring “alongside as we would hoped,” regardless of the pandemic resulting in some delays.

State of play: The pressing care, anticipated to serve 8,800 sufferers in its first 12 months, will likely be open seven days every week and can provide testing and remedy for medical points together with chilly signs and urinary tract infections, in addition to present x-rays and fundamental lab work.