NYC Health Does Not Care about the Mental Health of its Employees

New York City is home to over 8.5 million residents, and around 700 of those are employees of the Division of Mental Hygiene at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Mental Hygiene promotes mental wellness among all New Yorkers, prioritizes racial equity, and promotes understanding that environmental and social factors perpetuate health inequities. Unfortunately, the division’s purported mission to the community does not extend to its own staff–even though we are also the community. Mental Hygiene staff face structural barriers that are sustained within the division such as racial micro and macro aggressions that prohibit them from reaching their potential as careered public health staff. Dysfunction and structural issues prevent our staff from being able to effectively serve the public. 

The increased utilization of social media to bolster the visibility of the Health Department's programming for New Yorkers has illustrated the performative prioritization of diversity, equity and inclusion. Photo-ops tokenize the community workers (primarily of color). Meanwhile, Mental Hygiene leadership regularly represses staff advocacy for better pay, opportunities for growth, and to expand their career development outside of the relatively lower-paying community-facing roles they are pigeon-holed into. This staffing dynamic perpetuates the same inequities Mental Hygiene supposedly wants to eradicate.

Executive Deputy Commissioner (EDC) turnover is as frequent as the seasonal changes in New York, and the constant state of transition leaves Mental Hygiene employees without a work environment that prioritizes staff's well-being, where staff are treated like cogs in the labor machine instead of collaborators with expertise in the work. The latest EDC has realized our apprehension --throughout his six months on the job, he has created a hostile work environment that has made our division a place filled with tension and discontent. The EDC has implemented structural changes to programming without any consultation of the staff who work directly on those programs. He acknowledges the importance of the division's work in uplifting the wellbeing of New Yorkers, but does not seem to consider the wellbeing of his staff when he shuts down questions or good faith comments that don't align with his vision. Despite an alleged open-door policy to discuss any concerns, the reality is that many of his decisions are made alone and with no room for further discussion.

Many of the employees within Mental Hygiene are career public servants who do the work of moving our City's behavioral health programs, regulations, and planning forward every day regardless of who is in charge. Our voices should hold more importance when leadership is deciding how to improve access to behavioral healthcare in New York. We are also people who live and work in New York. We take the subway to work, raise our families here, and get involved in our communities --our wellbeing is important, too. If the NYC Health Department plans to uphold its aim to promote the mental wellness for all New Yorkers, it should take a hard look at how it treats its own employees' wellbeing. We want to continue working hard to improve our City, but we also deserve to do so in a safe, inclusive and thoughtful environment.