Dr. Oxiris Barbot resigned from her role as New York City's health commissioner on Tuesday, ABC News reports.
In her resignation letter she said "the Health Department's incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been."
"I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the Health Department's incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been," she penned in her resignation letter.
She took aim at Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration in the letter. Her decision to step down comes after de Blasio took the city’s COVID-19 contact tracing program away from the health department and placed it under Health and Hospitals, the agency that runs the city's public hospitals.
Recently, contact tracers have lodged complaints that the program was unorganized and had poor working conditions, according to ABC News.
She will be replaced by Dr. Dave Chokshi, a Rhodes Scholar who worked at the Louisiana Department of Health during Hurricane Katrina and was the principal health adviser to the Secretary of Veterans Affairs during the Obama administration.
"I couldn’t be prouder of our City’s response in the face of a once-in-a-lifetime public health crisis,” Chokshi said in a statement, according to the New York Post. “I’m honored to serve the people of New York City with the extraordinary team at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Together, we will emerge from this pandemic as a stronger, fairer, and healthier city.”
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