Downtown residents and local elected officials called on redevelopment officials last week to create a pulmonary and environmental health clinic for Downtown residents.
Some residents and health advocates say that Downtown residents suffer from ongoing health problems because of the toxic dust cloud that lingered over their neighborhood when the Twin Towers came crashing down on Sept. 11, 2001. While residents can receive pulmonary care at Mt. Sinai and Bellevue hospitals, there is no facility in Lower Manhattan.
“Some of the people who lived and breathed under this unprecedented plume from this unprecedented environmental disaster might have some symptoms and health effects as a result,” City Council-member Alan Gerson told Downtown Express. “We should, as a priority, err on the side of caution and bring together a center, which can diagnose, treat and research the health impacts.”
Residents living below Canal St. who participated in World Trade Center Health Registry survey in 2003 reported alarmingly high health problems. Of the 12,624 registrants who lived Downtown, 36 percent reported a persistent cough, 46 percent reported sinus irritation, 33 percent reported wheezing and 38 percent reported shortness of breath in 2003.
Gerson expects the new center to cost $5 million initially, and he is looking to the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency vested with rebuilding Downtown, to fund it.
But the L.M.D.C. has yet to sign on to the idea. “We are not going to comment on any individual funding application submitted to the L.M.D.C., including any of the other nearly $1 billion worth of proposals the Councilman [Gerson] has asked us to fund,” John Gallagher, an L.M.D.C. spokesperson, wrote in an e-mail to Downtown Express.
Gerson sees a long future for the health clinic. Initially, it would cater to residents with lingering health problems, but eventually it could become a center to treat an array of health problems. “If there are a plethora of serious pulmonary needs out there, then it will evolve and become more specialized. If not it will evolve into an urban environmental health center to continually research and track and diagnose the health impacts of our environment,” he said. “What could be a better place for one than Lower Manhattan?”
— Ronda Kaysen
WWW Downtown Express
