21 January 2022: New NY Health Commissioner "Would Resign" Rather Than Implement Cuomo's Deadly Directive

NY health boss Mary Bassett would resign before enacting Cuomo-style nursing home order

Replacement New York Governor Kathy Hochul's pick to fill the role of New York's Health Commissioner, Mary Bassett, was confirmed for the position by New York's state senate. This report picks up on an interesting comment she made to distinguish herself from her ethically compromised predecessor Howard Zucker.

Dr. Mary Bassett was grilled Wednesday by state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Glenville) about “lessons learned” from the state Health Department’s nursing home policy under former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, particularly her thoughts on the March 25, 2020 order.

“I decided when I took up this post that I wasn’t going to try and unravel what had happened in the nursing homes under the previous commissioner, but simply look forward,” Bassett said during a Senate Finance Committee meeting, as she was questioned ahead of her confirmation by the legislature’s upper chamber as Gov. Kathy Hochul’s DOH commissioner.

“Honesty is the best policy and that transparency about data is always appropriate even when the data don’t show what we wish they would show.”

Tedisco pressed, “If this governor, or any governor comes to you, or would have come to you and said, ‘We have to accept the diversity, we can’t discriminate against people who have a very contagious disease, and we’re going to implement allowing them to come from hospital if they have this to go to nursing homes.’ What would you say to that governor?”

Bassett answered: “I’m a doctor first and foremost. I’ll never give advice that I think will harm people. I will never give that advice and I won’t agree to follow it. I would offer to resign, to be clear.”

While her offered resignation pledge puts her in a much higher ethical league than either Andrew M. Cuomo or Howard Zucker, Bassett's additional statements give cause for concern. They indicate she's giving a free pass to public health officials who participated in implementing Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

Failing to hold subordinates accountable for engaging in what you acknowledge as a leader to be unethical and damaging conduct that would compel your own resignation represents a lost opportunity to rebuild the public's trust in New York's scandal-plagued Department of Health. Worse, it is a statement of failed leadership by design.

Had Bassett pledged to clean house at the department, her confirmation could have gained bipartisan support. She didn't, where majority Democrats in the state senate who voted for her confirmation have effectively endorsed sweeping the role of the state's public health officials in Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals under the rug.