North Central Bronx Hospital (NCBH) is here to stay, according to officials for the city-funded hospital. But it will once again come with some changes at the top.

Officials with NYC Health + Hospitals announced at an employee town hall a “restructuring” of high-level management, with the current CEO of NCBH’s sister hospital, Christopher Mastromano of NYC Health + Hospitals/Jacobi, slated to manage both hospitals. The move comes amid the retirement of NCBH’s CEO, Maureen Pode, and several promotions that raised several eyebrows.

The retirement of Pode opens the door to “build on the close relationship” between NCBH and Jacobi, according to hospital spokesman John Doyle. The decision to reduce “administrative redundancies” comes as the hospital system continues to financially bleed. Estimates show the hospital system will be $1.8 billion in the red by 2020.

News of the management merger disturbed Councilman Fernando Cabrera, in attendance at the town hall briefing, who worries Mastromano will prioritize 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.

“[F]or example, chairs used to manage both the budget and take [NCBH] money and used to purchase what Jacobi needed for the patients and staff while [NCBH] got the short end of the stick. And that translates to less services and less resources to people who live locally,” Cabrera told the Norwood News in a telephone interview shortly after the meeting. “We also saw [NCBH] physicians that were moved…to Jacobi. And there was a tremendous negative impact as a result of that.”

But the hospital corporation sees the reductions as a way of diverting “more resources into the front line of care, where our patients need us most.” NCBH has since reopened its Labor & Delivery unit while expanding its psychiatric unit.

Assemblywoman Nathalia Fernandez, who attended the meeting, told the Norwood News she too was surprised by the management merger but questioned the logic of 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.”

With Mastromano now managing both hospitals, murmurs were shortly overhead on why NCBH’s chief operations officer, Cristina Contreras, was overlooked for the position while three others were promoted to top spots, according to Cabrera and Fernandez. Cabrera was noticeably peeved, citing the lack of promotion for Contreras, a woman of color. Contreras is of Dominican descent. The three promoted were white.

“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. “We’re gonna need somebody who’s going to be in there and support the full restoration of staff, because that was the biggest complaints. There’s no resources; they’re still at the same capital staffing levels from 20 years ago.”

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?’”

Contreras was not allowed to comment for the article.

In a follow-up statement, Mastromano said the system’s hospitals”reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.”

“To judge our diversity, don’t look at one position within our health system of 40,000 employees,” said Mastromano. “Look at the beautiful and diverse rainbow of people who work here, and you will see, we are New York!”