D.C. Health Director LaQuandra Nesbitt will resign at the end of the month, she told The Washington Post Wednesday, ending a near-eight-year run for one of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s longest-serving cabinet members who played an instrumental role in the city’s day-to-day response to the coronavirus pandemic.
At a time when some health officials around the country have stepped down from their posts because of burnout or harassment during the pandemic, Nesbitt said her July 29 departure is spurred instead by her desire to bring together her experiences in a new arena. She’s held roles as a teacher, physician and health leader in two major cities — and, while she has no specific job lined up, Nesbitt said she wants to improve health systems by finding novel ways for private and community-based health organizations to partner with local governments and traditional health care providers.
And while she’d like to stay in D.C., Nesbitt added that she’s ready for a break from city government.
“What you learn about working in state and local government is there are so many players who need to be involved in keeping communities healthy,” she said. “I want an opportunity to look at things from a different vantage point.”
Her exit comes as the city’s coronavirus response continues to shift: Last week, D.C. Health ended its contact tracing program, which officials said had lost its effectiveness in recent months. Daily case counts in the District have declined since May, now sitting at about 195 new cases per 100,000 residents, although that number is likely an undercount and variants of the virus remain an unpredictable threat.
The emergence of monkeypox in the District has also caused alarm; District officials said there were 58 cases reported in the city as of Tuesday.
Nesbitt said the recent decline in coronavirus cases had no role in her decision to leave the department, adding that residents should feel confident about the health department’s future.
“I’ve been steering the ship, but what residents need to know is that I have selected team members here who will always act in the best interest of D.C.,” she said. “The city is, and will be, in good hands.”
Originally from Flint, Mich., Nesbitt earned her medical degree from Wayne State University and a master’s of public health from Harvard. She first joined D.C.’s health department in 2008 as a senior deputy policy director, overseeing community health efforts including nutritional programs, cancer and diabetes prevention, and infant and child health improvement before departing two years later to lead the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness in 2011.
Nesbitt served in Louisville until early 2015, when Bowser, upon being elected as D.C.’s mayor brought Nesbitt back to lead D.C. Health. Nesbitt has also held adjunct teaching roles at the University of Maryland.
In an interview, Bowser (D) praised Nesbitt’s service and said she would make an announcement shortly on who will lead the department in the interim and will launch a full search for a new director in the coming weeks.
“When I was recruiting for the position at the time she was one of a handful of people who, immediately after her interview, I said, ‘That’s our doctor,’ ” Bowser said. “LaQuandra is a well-rounded public leader, she’ll be successful in whatever is next for her.”
It wasn’t always smooth sailing. Nesbitt and the health department faced criticism from D.C. Council members when ramping up and then dialing back pandemic-related restrictions, like masking. Some residents questioned her decision to hire Tom Farley, the former Philadelphia health commissioner who ordered the destruction of human remains of victims of a 1985 police bombing in West Philadelphia. Lawmakers also challenged her over the city’s process for residents to get vaccinated early in the pandemic, when vaccines were in short supply, arguing that it was not accessible to poorer residents.
Despite frustrations, Nesbitt said residents by and large followed her department’s guidance and recommendations from the start — an indicator, she said, that they had confidence in the city’s response.
“All those other things that happened along the way, in terms of forced errors or unforced errors, paled in comparison to the moments where we got very clear signals that our people were with us,” she said.
Julie Zauzmer Weil contributed to this report.
