Baltimore Mayor Brandon Lewis is facing calls to explain himself after announcing that the city’s top health official is leaving her $230,000 job with immediate effect.
Health Commissioner Ihuoma Emenuga boasts a host of qualifications from universities on three continents, and a storied history of senior management positions in public health.
But the Democrat mayor announced she had stepped down just seven months into the job, with a brutally terse notice on the council website.
‘Ihuoma Emenuga will no longer serve as the Baltimore City Health Commissioner and is no longer employed by the City of Baltimore, effective immediately,’ it told voters.
A source told the city’s capitalgazette.com that she was sacked ahead of a ‘pending investigation’, but a spokesman for the mayor said he could not comment further.
Baltimore Health Commissioner Ihuoma Emenuga is waving goodbye to her job just seven months after being sworn in by Mayor Brandon Scott
Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott promised she would bring ‘extensive experience, dedication to public health and innovative thinking’ when he hired her on $230,000 a year
The city claims to have ‘America’s oldest, continuously-operating health department’, but one of its shortest-serving bosses has left residents demanding answers.
‘Seven months into a contract and they’re terminated means two things, they weren’t properly vetted or they weren’t properly vetted,’ wrote Ellan Johnson.
‘Pending investigation? Public official so citizens have a right to know,’ wrote Copper2029.
‘No paid admin leave? No golden parachute? It must be bad?’ added CharmCityMadMan.
The Mayor was effusive about his new hire when he announced her appointment in December.
‘She will bring her extensive experience, dedication to public health and innovative thinking to her work on behalf of Baltimoreans in every neighborhood,’ he predicted.
‘As we safeguard all types of health in our communities, Dr Emenuga will be critical in helping us build a healthier, more equitable Baltimore.’
A healthier Baltimore was certainly wanted when her predecessor resigned after a NYT investigation found the city had a drug death rate nearly twice that of any other US city for most of Letitia Dzirasa’s four-year term.
Dzirasa denied her resignation was connected with the report before taking up a post as deputy mayor for Equity, Health, and Human Service.
But it was just another two months before she announced her resignation from that post.
Emenuga qualified from the University of Nigeria with a medical degree and holds graduate degrees from the University of London and the University of Maryland, College Park.
She is licensed as a doctor by the Maryland Board of Physicians and previously served as managing partner for the health care consultancy, Vie Health.
She has held roles with Chase Brexton Health Care, and as chief medical officer for Park West Health System and Family Health Centers of Baltimore.
And the tri-lingual physician was already serving as a medical director for the Health Department’s Youth Wellness and Community Health Division by the time she was appointed to the top job.
The mayor said the city would begin a ‘nation-wide search for its next Health Commissioner’, and that Deputy City Administrator Simone Johnson would step into the role for the time being.
A source told the city’s capitalgazette.com that she was sacked ahead of a ‘pending investigation’, but a spokesman for the Mayor said he could not comment further
Mayor Scott’s latest recruitment headache comes after the departure of his police commissioner, public works director, the city’s top attorney, the city administrator and two chiefs of staff.
His office pointed out that the new health stand-in has ‘more than two decades of local and state government experience’, including stints in the Housing and Transit authorities.
But that did not reassure some on social media
‘He’s replaced her on an interim basis with someone with no health care expertise but a lot of agency crisis management expertise,’ wrote Ronald Stubblefield.
‘Must be an investigation.’
