North Central Bronx Hospital (NCBH) has found its new CEO in one of ITS own, a week after officials with NYC Health + Hospitals initially snubbed her for the post.

Cristina Contreras has been kicked upstairs to run the hospital after service as the city-funded hospital’s chief operating officer. Contreras succeeds outgoing NCBH head Maureen Pode, who announced her retirement.

“We are lucky to have Cristina Contreras take on this new senior administrative post,” said NYC Health + Hospitals President and CEO Mitchell Katz, MD, in a statement. “Her leadership and commitment to the hospital staff, patients, and the community are essential as we continue to focus on strengthening the vital role NYC Health + Hospitals/North Central Bronx plays in this community.”

In a statement, Contreras said she is so “pleased to have been tapped for this important leadership role and have the opportunity to continue working with the staff, patients, and the North Bronx community that I love.” Contreras has been a visible figure in Norwood. She also serves as a member of Community Board 7.

The news is an about-face by NYC Health + Hospitals, which initially announced at an employee town hall a “restructuring” of high-level management, with the current CEO, Christopher Mastromano, of NCBH’s sister hospital, NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi, initially slated to manage both hospitals.

That angered elected officials such as Councilman Fernando Cabrera, who was in attendance at the Aug. 21 town hall briefing. Cabrera had worried Mastromano would have prioritized Jacobi’s needs over NCBH. The practice, Cabrera said, has been done before when Jacobi and NCBH fell under the same network up until 2016.

While making no accusations, Cabrera pointed to three promotions of other hospital employees who were white. Contreras was born in the Dominican Republic. “And then the only time that they mentioned one person of color it was with Cristina, and they just said, ‘You’re doing a good job.’ I mean, are you serious?” said Cabrera.

Contreras’ rise comes amid the hospital system’s current financial woes. Estimates show the hospital network will be $1.8 billion in the red by 2020.

Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez, had originally questioned the logic behind one person managing two enormous hospitals. “I said, ‘That’s great. I know [Mastromano] does a great job managing Jacobi, but to do two hospitals is too much for just one person.”

Fernandez recalled staffers staring at each other in disbelief over Contreras’ promotion snub. “Nearly everybody in the room was like, ‘Why not just promote Cristina?’ Like, ‘Why you looking for new people to come into a community they don’t know, to come into a hospital that they don’t know, when you have somebody here?’”