Residents welcome new hospital in Southeast D.C.: ‘We need this'

Washington Post

15-04-2025

The District's newest hospital, Cedar Hill Regional Medical Center GW Health in Congress Heights, officially opened to patients at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. Minutes later the first patient walked in. Then the first ambulance pulled up.
And by midafternoon, 79 patients had visited the emergency department, a hospital spokeswoman said.
A decade after Mayor Muriel E. Bowser promised Southeast Washington residents a hospital, and three years after construction began, the first new hospital in the District in a generation has begun the hard work of caring for a long-underserved community with complex medical needs.
'It's a long time coming on this end of town,' said Muriel Langford, 73, a retired Southeast resident, standing outside the main entrance. 'We need this … the key thing is having this on this end of [wards] 7 and 8 so I'm appreciative that this [hospital] is here.'
The city funded nearly all of the $434 million construction costs and turned operations over to Universal Health Services, the same Fortune 300 company that runs George Washington University Hospital, banking on the reputation of the academic medical center in Foggy Bottom.
'When people say we want in Ward 8, we want the same things as people in Ward 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 — we want the same things. And so we are proud of our partnership with the GW Health,' Bowser said last week at the ribbon-cutting.
Cedar Hill is replacing the only other hospital east of the Anacostia River, United Medical Center, and expanding the care available, giving mothers a labor and delivery unit close to home for the first time in eight years. A trauma center at Cedar Hill, the first in Southeast in at least 30 years, will eventually treat all but the most severe injuries.
An adult emergency department and a pediatric emergency department run by Children's National Hospital were up and running Tuesday, and staff were in place to open about three-quarters of the 136 beds, hospital spokeswoman Susan LaRosa has said.
People often turn to hospitals when they have no other option for care, but city officials have said Cedar Hill could connect patients with trusted community clinics, including Unity Health Care, Community of Hope and Whitman-Walker. The path to turning around stark health disparities in D.C. runs through the primary care doctors and nurses who help residents prevent and manage chronic conditions, public health experts say.
The average life expectancy of the poor, majority African American residents in wards east of the Anacostia River lags behind the rest of the city. And, Black District residents citywide died of cancer, heart disease and diabetes at much higher rates than White and Hispanic residents, according to D.C. health department data from 2019 to 2023.
Aneathia Brown, 25, who brought her 4-year-old daughter Angel to Cedar Hill on Tuesday, said she has gotten care all over the city, but hopes she can turn to Cedar Hill for most of her family's needs going forward.
Brown recently had surgery for an ectopic pregnancy at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital and before that went to MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Northwest Washington for prenatal care. Cedar Hill would significantly cut the travel time for treatment from her home in Southeast near Prince George's County.
'I'm hoping this one is kind of like Georgetown,' she said.
Cedar Hill also will offer specialty care in Southeast, including many services that residents previously had to travel across the city to find. Hospital officials declined to provide a list of what specialty services were available on Day 1, but noted that beds and services will expand based on the needs of patients including cardiology, neurology and cancer care.
When fully operational in several weeks, the hospital will have 600 workers, and as of Tuesday about 300 people were hired, LaRosa said. That includes 84 residents of Wards 7 and 8. At least half of Cedar Hill employees must live in D.C. with exceptions for hard-to-fill positions, according to contract documents.
Langford, who visited the hospital Tuesday, is helping her nephew reintegrate into the community after being incarcerated and wanted to know the status of his job application to work in housekeeping.
A survivor of breast and stomach cancer, Langford uses senior transport services like MetroAccess to see her primary and specialty care doctors at MedStar Washington Hospital Center and doesn't anticipate switching providers to go to Cedar Hill.
However, in case of an emergency, she said it's comforting to know a full-service hospital is minutes from her home.
'This is where they should bring me,' she said. 'Right here.'