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A CEREMONIAL RESOLUTION
20-282
IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
October 28, 2014
To recognize the contributions of A. Janelle Goetcheus, M.D. in the District of Columbia.
WHEREAS, Janelle Goetcheus, M.D., is described as a “visionary who looks directly into the face of social evil” and “speaks to patients in the language of the heart”;
WHEREAS, Janelle Goetcheus graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1965 and moved to Washington, D.C., with her husband, who is a minister, in 1976;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus founded the Columbia Road Health Services in 1979, a medical clinic to serve the capital city’s tens-of-thousands Central American refugees and other extremely poor persons;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus, in 1985, founded Christ House, a temporary residential respite care facility for homeless men and women, the only one of its kind in the nation;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus, in 1992, established the Kairos House, a permanent housing program for former Christ House patients who have medical disabilities preventing them from being able to work;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus, also in 1985, worked with others to establish the Health Care for the Homeless Project that led to the creation of Unity Health Care in 1998; Unity Health Care has 25 neighborhood medical centers located in the neediest areas of the city;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus was involved with the creation of the D.C. Health Care Alliance, a consortium of private entities proving patient services among several hospitals and through local community health centers;
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus was named Doctor of the Year by the American Academy of Family Physicians in 1991, was deemed a “Woman of Mercy” by the Sisters of Mercy in 1988, was inducted to the District of Columbia’s Hall of Fame in 1989, received the 1990 Good Samaritan Award from the National Catholic Development Conference, and, in 1995, was named Washingtonian of the Year by the Washingtonian Magazine; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Goetcheus, was described as the “Mother Teresa of Washington” when she received the 2002 American Medical Association Pride in Profession Award from Dr. Stuart F. Seides, who went further on to say “She is an inner-city missionary, utterly selfless. She sees God in all these people who have fallen through the cracks of governmental social systems, and she has a vision in looking after the homeless and the dispossessed in the city.”
IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, that the Council of the District of Columbia recognizes and honors the contributions of A. Janelle Goetcheus, M.D., and declares December 30, 2014, as “A. Janell Goetcheus, M.D., Day” in the District of Columbia.
Sec. 2. This resolution may be cited as the “A. Janelle Goetcheus, M.D., Day” Recognition Resolution of 2014”.
Sec. 3. This resolution shall take effect immediately upon the first date of publication in the District of Columbia Register.
