Jan 12, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO J  | COMMENTS     

D.C. Department of Health Director Dr. Gregg Pane took the unusual step last week of naming himself interim director of the city’s trouble-plagued Administration for HIV Policy & Programs.

Pane announced his decision to take on the dual role of health director and head of the AIDS administration after Mayor Adrian Fenty decided not to retain Marsha Martin, whom former Mayor Anthony Williams appointed to the director’s post in September 2005.

“I have named myself interim head for the next 30 to 60 days to get to the bottom of the problems,” Pane said in a telephone interview last week.

Pane is a physician who has worked for more than 20 years as a public health administrator in government agencies and the private sector, including the U.S. Veterans Health Administration.

He said he has named Marie Sansone, the AIDS administration’s chief of HIV surveillance, as his interim chief of staff at the AIDS agency. Meanwhile, Pane plans a national search to find a permanent AIDS director.

At a Jan. 3 reception in his new office at city hall, Fenty said he decided to replace Martin as head of the AIDS agency after holding discussions with his transition team advisers, members of the City Council and community health advocates.

“We thought it was a good time for a new set of eyes,” Fenty said. “This is one of our critical, critical issues and crises in this city and we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got as much energy and attention to detail and focus on this issue going forward,” he said. “And we think a change is the way to do that.”

Fenty’s decision to replace Martin also came less than a week after the Washington Post published a story disclosing that Sansone discovered in August boxes containing records of between 2,000 and 3,000 HIV and AIDS cases that had remained unreported and uncounted for more than a year. Sansone found the boxes at the AIDS administration headquarters a month after she started her job there, the Post reported.

The cases were mostly from 2003 through 2005 and had not been entered into the city’s HIV database, contributing to longstanding concern by AIDS activists that the AIDS administration has been unable to accurately count the number of people with HIV in the city.

Martin expressed astonishment upon the discovery of the boxes and said the failure to process the records was part of a system she inherited and was working to fix. But critics noted that she had been in office for 16 months and should have had a better handle on the inner workings of the unit in charge of surveillance and processing HIV cases.

“It is consistent with past problems at the agency, though we had wished there had been more progress made,” said Fenty, when asked about the recently discovered boxes of records.

“I think going forward, this will remain an extremely high priority for a long time, until we make a lot better progress,” he said. “We’ve got to start to reduce the infection rate and look at how well we’re caring for people. We certainly don’t have any time or patience for just pure mismanagement.”

Martin became the 11th person to head the city’s AIDS agency, whose name has been changed numerous times, in the 21 years since its inception. Lydia Watts, Martin’s predecessor, was fired by Pane 11 months after being hired.

In other city developments this week:

• Fenty spokesperson Mafara Hobson said Darlene Nipper, the head of the city’s Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs under former Mayor Williams, would remain in that post as director until Fenty decides whether or not to replace her.

• Williams on Dec. 28 signed the Domestic Partnership Joint Filing Act of 2006, which would allow domestic partners registered with the city to file joint tax returns for their city income taxes. A change in administrative staff at the offices of the City Council and mayor prevented the disclosure of Williams’ signing of the bill until this week.

• Williams also signed on Dec. 28 a second domestic partnership bill that the Council approved on Dec. 19, the Domestic Partnership Property Equity Act of 2006. The bill makes technical changes to the existing domestic partners law to clarify that registered domestic partners are responsible for debts entered into together but not for debts they were not a party to such as gambling debts.