New York ? As a result of a temporary insurance plan created after Sept. 11, nearly 1,600 New Yorkers who received coverage were diagnosed with cancer, according to a study released by the city’s public hospitals.

Disaster-relief Medicaid was a four-month health insurance program created after the Sept. 11 attack mainly to provide coverage for those who lost jobs and benefits. The plan provided short-term coverage to the city’s uninsured through a simplified, one-page application. As a result of the speedy approval process and reduced documentation requirements, close to 342,000 New Yorkers were enrolled in disaster Medicaid.

Now, a new report finds that the temporary insurance plan, which was born out of tragedy, uncovered several unexpected health problems. A study by the city Health and Hospitals Corporation analyzed treatment of 75,000 disaster-relief Medicaid patients at the city’s 11 public hospitals and found 1,587 people were diagnosed and treated for a malignant type of cancer. The illnesses were not related to the terrorist attack.

Dr. Benjamin Chu, president of the city’s public hospital system, said about half of those patients were women with cervical or breast cancer. Chu said another 10 percent of the patients had prostate cancer.

“As a doctor, this is what you want to see happen,” Chu said at a news conference in Manhattan. “People coming in with the disease early and getting treated. On the cost side, it shows that if you spend a little money up front, you can save a lot of money down the line in treatment.”

Among the other findings in the report, Chu said about 16,000 disaster-relief Medicaid patients were treated for chronic conditions including heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, asthma and tuberculosis. Nearly 6,700 women with disaster Medicaid sought gynecological services.

The HHC study was one of a series of reports released Wednesday examining disaster-relief Medicaid. The United Hospital Fund, a health research organization based in Manhattan, reported that rates of uninsured in New York increased from 1995 to 2000. That trend was reversed dramatically after Sept. 11 with disaster Medicaid, according to the state health department.

Currently, thousands of families are in the process of switching from disaster-relief Medicaid to other public health insurance plans, including regular Medicaid. But advocates say the transition process is so complicated requiring extensive documentation and interviews that many eligible families will lose coverage. Chu is lobbying the state to permanently simplify the process.

Carmen Santana, an asthmatic, was trying to switch from disaster Medicaid to regular Medicaid and mistakenly received a letter saying she was denied coverage. After a three-month struggle, her coverage was reinstated. “When I didn’t have coverage, I seemed to suffer more asthma attacks because of the stress,” she said.