NEW YORK (AP) -- The American Red Cross announced $16 million in World Trade Center health-care grants on Monday while Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other New York lawmakers said the federal government has reneged on promises to help first responders to the trade center.
''It's hard to imagine that we can't get the help that we need,'' said Clinton, who was joined by Red Cross officials and U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney at the headquarters of the Red Cross' New York chapter.
The two-year grants announced Monday are part of the Red Cross' $90 million September 11 Recovery Program, funds donated to the organization after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
While the bulk of the money was spent on direct assistance to people affected by the disaster, the new grants will go to organizations that are providing long-term health and mental health services to World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers and others suffering from the attack.
''Since the terrorist attacks the Red Cross has been serving the victims of Sept. 11 with a combination of direct financial assistance and case management to help them achieve self-sufficiency,'' said Alan Goodman, executive director of the recovery program.
''Our recovery grants program now allows us to use the balance remaining in the Liberty Disaster Relief Fund to support non-profit institutions and community-based organizations that can address the longer-term mental and physical health needs of these individuals through a broader range of services than the Red Cross is chartered or equipped to provide,'' he said.
The grantees include the Fire Safety and Education Fund of the Fire Department, which will receive $5 million to aid firefighters and emergency medical workers who were exposed to toxins at the trade center site; the Mount Sinai Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which will receive $6.2 million to expand its treatment and diagnostic programs for people affected by the attacks; and Bellevue Hospital Center, which will receive $2.4 million for evaluation and treatment for lower Manhattan residents.
The Long Island Occupational and Environmental Health Center at Stony Brook University will receive $1.2 million for services for first responders who live on Long Island, while smaller grants will go to the Association of Occupational and Environmental Clinics, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and Queens College.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, chairman of Mount Sinai School of Medicine's community and preventive medicine department, said the grants are needed because 40 percent of the 11,000 people who have been evaluated for trade center-related health problems at Mount Sinai have no health insurance.
Clinton, Nadler and Maloney said the Red Cross is filling a void left by the federal government, which is not providing the help that trade center first responders need.
''You can't call them heroes and not be there with treatment,'' Maloney said.
The three Democratic lawmakers criticized last week's move by a House Appropriations subcommittee to take back some $125 million in unspent Sept. 11 workers compensation aid to New York.
Nadler called the committee's action ''disgraceful'' and ''inexcusable,'' and Clinton vowed to fight it in the Senate both on the merits and on technical grounds. ''We don't believe you can rescind emergency dollars,'' she said.
