Unions, community members call on Ascension to keep DC Catholic hospital open

In the summer, Ascension Health Care announced plans to close the Northeast DC’s Providence Hospital, leaving a single ER serving the city’s largely African-American eastern wards. National Nurses United and the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees organized a community meeting at the Plymouth Congregational Church in September so that residents could air their concerns. As the DC Line blog reported,

DC residents, nurses, doctors, union activists and a city council member showed up to a recent community meeting to voice concerns about Providence Hospital’s plans to shut down acute care services to transition into a new model focused on outpatient services.

Many are calling for Ascension, the Catholic health system that oversees Providence, to fix problems instead of closing the hospital, which originated during the Civil War and relocated to its present site in the Northeast neighborhood of Michigan Park in 1956. Advocates say the move would create a “health care desert” for many residents in the eastern half of DC.

The Washington DC City Council will hold a hearing on the issue on October 10.