Baltimore’s top health official Dr. Letitia Dzirasa stepping down in June
Baltimore’s top health official will step down at the end of June, as part of a series of planned changes in city leadership.
Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the deputy mayor for Equity, Health, and Human Services, will leave her role June 5, according to a memorandum from Chief Administrative Officer Faith Leach obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
The changes also includes promotions for other officials in Mayor Brandon Scott’s administration, including his current communications director, deputy chief of staff and the chief policy officer for the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success.
Dzirasa, a pediatrician who received her medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, has served as deputy mayor since April 2023, after serving as city health commissioner from March 2019 to April 2023.
Dzirasa could not be reached for comment, but Scott said she is leaving to take a “well-deserved break from public service.”
“I am so grateful to Dr. Dzirasa for her exceptional leadership and service to the City of Baltimore through some of our most difficult days,” the Democratic mayor said in a statement. “Dr. D was instrumental in protecting our community and saving countless lives as our Health Commissioner. And she has ensured that science, data, and equity are kept at the forefront of our work to support Baltimore’s most vulnerable residents as Deputy Mayor.”
While health commissioner, Dzirasa led the city’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, during which the city launched a mass testing drive-thru site at Pimlico Race Course, and partnered with the University of Maryland Medical System to convert the Lord Baltimore Hotel into a COVID command center and overflow isolation housing. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health lauded the city’s response in a 2021 study that found Baltimore fared better than most similar cities during the pandemic for avoiding sickness and death and achieving high levels of vaccination.
Even though Dzirasa had barely served as city health commissioner for a year before the pandemic struck, she did Baltimore proud during the crisis, said Dr. Charles “Chuck” Callahan, vice president of population health at the University of Maryland Medical Center.
During the pandemic, Callahan helped the city health department set up the triage, respite and isolation site at the Lord Baltimore Hotel, where people infected with COVID who couldn’t quarantine safely could stay and receive medical care. By the time the site closed, about two years into the pandemic, more than 3,300 people — many of them experiencing homelessness — had received care there, Callahan said.
“When you have a city that’s got two massive anchor institutions with a whole lot of brain power, it would be really easy for us to be spinning off in any different direction,” said Callahan, who helped lead the state’s mass testing and vaccination site in Baltimore. “I really credit Dr. Dzirasa and the health department for pulling us all together.”
Dzirasa’s run with the city has not been without issue. Earlier this year, she needed to amend her ethics disclosures to reflect a large contract her husband’s technology company, Fearless, has with the city, the news website Baltimore Brew reported. She previously was the firm’s health innovation officer.
Leach announced Dzirasa’s departure with “mixed emotions” in a two-page memo to the City Council.
“Please join Mayor Scott in thanking Dr. Dzirasa for her incredible leadership and service to the City of Baltimore,” she wrote.
John David “J.D.” Merrill, the mayor’s current deputy chief of staff, will serve as Dzirasa’s interim replacement. Scott’s communications director, Bryan Doherty, is being promoted to deputy chief of staff.
Baltimore Sun reporter Emily Opilo contributed to this article.
