Mayor Seeks Millions for Health Needs

· $112 million for construction of three or more sophisticated health facilities in Wards 6, 7 and 8 -- what a health-care task force recommended instead of the city's intended partnership with Howard University on a new 250-bed hospital.

Of that, $72 million would build a "healthplex" with 24-hour emergency services, primary and specialty care, day surgeries and diagnostic imaging on the grounds of the former D.C. General Hospital at 19th Street and Massachusetts Avenue SE.

The remaining $40 million would provide for at least two ambulatory-care centers in the wards east of the Anacostia, each offering primary and specialty care, as well as pharmacy, laboratory and radiology services.

· $10 million for smoking cessation programs and $20 million for cancer prevention. Statistics show high incidences of breast, cervical, colorectal and prostate cancers locally, and D.C. cancer death rates are among the worst in the country.

· $10 million for a program to manage and prevent such chronic diseases as asthma, diabetes and hypertension. In some neighborhoods in Wards 7 and 8, more than 40 percent of adults suffer from these and other persistent conditions.

· $83 million to strengthen emergency care, with $2 million for new ambulances and $1 million for an assessment of the city's system. Based on that evaluation, the rest would be divided between Greater Southeast Community Hospital and Howard University Hospital to expand their emergency room capacities.

Health-care activist Vanessa Dixon immediately derided the provision as "throwing Howard a bone" for the mayor's abandonment this spring of the medical center that the city and university had planned for more than two years.

"The best proposal has already been made, which is the National Capital Medical Center," she said. "You can't look at an area of the city with a quarter-million people, with one crippled hospital, and say they don't need another hospital."

Others took equally vigorous positions on the other side. Robert A. Malson, president of the D.C. Hospital Association, called the plan a major step forward. The association would head the assessment of the emergency system.

"It makes a lot of sense for the city," Malson said, noting that most of the specifics closely followed the health-care task force's recent conclusions. "And it is about time that [District] tobacco money is used in a way that the settlement intended."