23 May 2022: Cuomo Health Department Passed on Addressing 96% of COVID-Era Nursing Home Complaints

35,600 nursing home complaints flooded NY amid COVID. Here's what happened to each one

This report introduces a new number to describe how badly Andrew M. Cuomo's health department addressed the needs of nursing home patients during the coronavirus pandemic. Here's an excerpt from the article:

More than 35,600 nursing home complaints flooded into New York during the COVID-19 pandemic’s first two years, as people raised concerns of neglect and other safety violations inside the facilities.

But a strikingly high number of the complaint cases, about 96%, had been deemed unsubstantiated or remained unresolved earlier this year, a USA TODAY Network New York investigation found.

State Health Department inspectors determined only about 4% of complaint cases were "substantiated," or violated health and safety standards, according to an analysis of state data obtained via public-records request. The review looked at cases between Jan. 1, 2020 and Jan. 14, 2022.

The findings — which include newly reported details of each complaint filed against hundreds of nursing homes across New York — uncovered a backlog of complaints as COVID-19 ravaged nursing homes, killing more than 15,000 residents.

"About 96%" works out to be approximately 34,176 complaints that the New York Department of Health has failed to substantiate. If equally spread out over 24 months, the 35,700 complaints that were filed would have been paced at about 1,488 complaints per month, or a little under 49 per day.

Andrew M. Cuomo resigned in disgrace rather than face being impeached by New York's state legislature on 24 August 2021. His appointed health commissioner, Howard Zucker, was allowed to continue in his job for more than a month afterward. His replacement, Mary Bassett, who was appointed by replacement governor Kathy Hochul on 30 September 2021, wasn't sworn into the job until a week after USA Today's period for investigating complaints ended.

New York's Department of Health was relatively unscathed by replacement governor Hochul's terminations of Cuomo loyalists named in the state attorney general's report on that office's investigation of Cuomo's alleged sexual harassment. With that being the case, it's reasonable to attribute the failure to substantiate 96% of the complaints filed about inadequate care in New York's nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic to Andrew M. Cuomo's failed administration and health department.