NAACP claims SC Mental Health discriminating against Black senior leadership

The South Carolina state office of the NAACP says the South Carolina Department of Mental Health has engaged in discriminatory practices against Black employees by restructuring senior leadership positions, as lawmakers finalize legislation that will merge six of the state’s health care agencies into one.

President Brenda Murphy of the South Carolina chapter of the NAACP was joined by former S.C. Department of Mental Health employee Eleanor Odom-Martin during a news conference recently, claiming that a recent restructuring of leadership within the department was an “orchestrated attempt” to reduce Black executive leadership within the department.

“I have received numerous telephone calls from employees who are concerned about this (organizational change) and feel as though they have no place to go because they are currently employed with the (Mental Health department) and feel they will be retaliated against if they speak out,” Odom-Martin said. She worked with the department for over 30 years, including 15 years as its human resources director. “Since I’m no longer an employee there, I’ve decided to carry the mantle for them.” Odom-Martin was terminated from the SCDMH in July of last year.

State Rep. Marvin Pendarvis, D-Charleston, who serves on the Medical, Military, Public and Municipal Affairs Committee that, in part, oversees healthcare policy, said while he was not aware of organizational changes at the department, he “echoes the NAACP’s concerns.”

“There is pending legislation dealing with the restructuring (of South Carolina’s health care agencies) that hasn’t been fully vetted,” Pendarvis said. “It seems a bit premature (for the Mental Health department) to make such a drastic decision, especially knowing there’s a large population being served by the department of mental health who are Black patients.”

Nearly 89 percent of patients with open cases at the Department of Mental Health are Black, according to the agency.

More than half of the patients and employees in the mental health agency are Black, according to Murphy, which, she says, speaks to the importance of having Black representation among the agency’s senior leadership. Murphy is a registered nurse by training and formerly served in executive leadership at the Department of Veteran Affairs.

The agency has eight deputy directors. The only Black deputy director in the agency, before and after the organizational restructuring, had her responsibilities drastically reduced, according to the NAACP.

The department said the changes have nothing to do with race but are intended to meet “legislative mandates while providing quality care and remaining fiscally sound.”

It’s a response Murphy and Odom-Martin say they anticipated. But they say it doesn’t make sense, especially in relation to the agency’s spending of tax dollars.

“When we look at the state of South Carolina and importance that we’re spending the tax dollars of our citizens appropriately,” recent administrative changes within the Mental Health agency appear to waste money, Odom-Martin said.

The department has “narrowed the scope of employees, paying them the same thing they were making (before the change), but has reduced their scope of responsibility. Is that a good steward of the taxpayer’s dollars? I believe not,” Odom-Martin said.

SC Mental Health spokesperson Tracy LaPointe said the organizational changes that took effect recently “have been under consideration for more than two years and are based on an extensive study.”

She added that no existing member of senior leadership was demoted, promoted or separated from the agency in relation to the recent changes, but two longtime staff members (both of whom are white), were however promoted to senior leadership.

But Murphy and Odom-Martin argue that’s a red herring.

That’s because the agency, according to its organizational chart, shows that significantly reduced the scope of responsibility for its only Black executive. Prior to the change, Dr. Versie Bellamy, a Black woman, who previously served as the deputy director for inpatient services and long-term care, supervised more than 1,100 employees. Now, following the agency’s restructuring, she oversees less than two hundred as the deputy director of long-term care, according to Odom-Martin. Bellamy holds a doctorate in nursing practice with a focus in executive leadership and health policy.

Bellamy was unavailable for comment.

How will changes impact patient care?

Murphy and Odom-Martin contend that organizational changes within the department will negatively impact patient health care because employee morale is low.

“I’m deeply concerned,” Murphy said. “This has implications for many employees working at the Department of Mental Health, which causes unrest and unhappiness that impacts on patient care. If it impacts on patient care, that is not something that should be tolerated and should be corrected immediately. We need to have some clarity about what is occurring at the department.”

The agency denies that recent changes to the agency will damper patient care.

“Changes to senior management are designed to improve patient care, as well as efficient use of funding,” LaPointe said. LaPointe, however, failed to respond to The State’s question about how having only one Black person in senior leadership impacts a mostly Black workforce. Odom-Martin contends that workforce — that serves a majority Black patient population — is suffering from low morale.

Odom-Martin’s departure from Mental Health

Odom-Martin was terminated as the department’s human resources director last July after a review by the South Carolina Department of Administration Division of State Human Resources found “significant long-standing deficiencies” in the agency’s human resources department, according to Odom-Martin’s termination letter.

“Ninety percent of the review’s findings were bogus, but that was the ruse they used in getting rid of me,” she said.

Odom-Martin added that she suspected for months her termination was imminent as she had become the “eyes and ears of the department,” often alerting the state director of sensitive problem areas throughout the agency, which ultimately, she says, placed a target on her back.

“If there were hot spots anywhere (within SCDMH), I could pick up my phone or walk upstairs to the director’s office and say, ‘You need to watch out for this, you need to do this, you need to do that,’ ” Odom-Martin recalled. “I was marginalized” for exercising her power in this regard.

The agency declined to comment on claims levied by Odom-Martin as “SCDMH does not comment on former employees,” according to LaPointe.

Executive Office of Health and Policy: a new proposal

South Carolina lawmakers are ironing out two bills — S. 915 and H. 4927 — that would drastically restructure the state’s health care system by combining six of its health agencies under a newly created department, the Executive Office of Health and Policy. The office would be headed by a secretary of health and policy, appointed by the governor.

The move comes following a decision last year by legislators to dissolve the state Department of Health and Environmental Control into two new departments, the Department of Public Health and the Department of Environmental Services. The split is set to take effect this summer.

In splintering other health care agencies, beyond DHEC, S. 915 and H. 4927, would merge the existing Departments of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services, Disabilities and Special Needs, Health and Human Services, Mental Health and Aging, and the pending Departments of Public Health and Environmental Health — set to be created this summer when the DHEC split takes effect.

Proponents of the split argue DHEC’s cleave is necessary, among other things, to ensure that environmental protections don’t fall through the cracks.

“Sometimes (the) environment, perhaps, doesn’t get the same attention it would if it was a separate agency,” said DHEC director, Edward Simmer, before a recent Senate panel.

While they support the legislation, Murphy and Odom-Martin maintain that changes to SCDMH’s organizational chart should not have taken place prior to the bill being signed into law and the governor selecting a secretary of health and policy, who could take an entirely different approach to agency’s organizational structure.

“Yes, we need change, but it needs to be done in an organized fashion, in a fair and just way, and the employees at the department of mental health needs to be given a voice in that process,” Murphy said.