A new D.C. hospital scheduled to deliver on the city’s east end in 2023 needs to open earlier, according to Councilman Vincent Gray, D-Ward 7, following the release of the Bowser administration’s 2020 budget proposal.
The budget would devote a total $325.5 million in city funds to build the new hospital, planned for the St. Elizabeths campus. But the bulk of that won’t be spent until its last couple of years: The proposal sets aside $46 million for fiscal 2020, $72 million for 2021, $87 million for 2022 and $111.8 million for 2023, while $8.7 million has already been allotted.
But Gray, chairman of the D.C. Council’s health committee, said the projected timeline just won’t cut it, especially as existing Southeast D.C. hospital United Medical Center continues to struggle financially, requiring healthy bailouts from the city.
“We simply can’t continue business as usual until 2023,” Gray said at a D.C. Council budget oversight hearing Tuesday. “Advancing the hospital funding to fiscal year 2021 makes obvious sense from a health equity perspective and, given the significant subsidy to UMC, it also makes fiscal sense.”