Based on the context of this article one should review the past 6 years of DC Health Care Policy and Leadership:

(1) the systematic financial underfunding of services at United Medical Center with closure of maternity and cancer treatment services.
(2) the closure of Providence Hospital and exodus of minority physicians.
(3) the specific exclusion of Howard University faculty and students from the new taxpayer funded hospital on the St Elizabeth’s Campus.
(4) the inhumane treatment of the homeless pre COVID via rapid gentrification.
(5) Black historical mass incarceration for non-violent drug offenses… “If addition is a medical disease, why is incarceration treatment?”
(6) the continued incompetent, race and class-based slow response to the raging Black opioid epidemic.
(7) Repeated, illegal DC Medicaid MCO contracting disruptions undermining both continuity of Black patient care and the integrity of Black provider networks and collaborative services.
(8) COVID vaccine rollout by computerized cannibalism (see how Bread for the City resorted to proven, cultural competent grassroots outreach)

Common sense is not so common. Gentrification is poison and NOT the MEDICINE to cure Black health disparities!

Edwin C Chapman, MD, DABIM, FASAM