After a handful of issues with hospitals and nursing homes, Maryland’s top oversight official for health care quality will step down effective June 27.

Tricia Nay, the office’s executive director, served in the position since 2014.

“We are committed to finding a highly qualified health care quality expert to lead this critical office,” said MDH Secretary Dr. Laura Herrera Scott. “Marylanders expect our regulated health care providers to provide high quality care to our patients, especially those who are most vulnerable.”

While the Maryland Department of Health did not provide an official reason for Nay’s departure, the office has been beleaguered by incidents in the last year.

Most recently, a handful of Maryland nursing home residents sued MDH for lack of oversight and substandard living conditions.

The lawsuit claims that the facilities were not being inspected by MDH and that the homes left residents languishing in beds, sitting in filth and isolated from other people.

Nay’s office is in charge of facility oversight and issuing licenses for health services.

About 80% of nursing homes were 17 months late in their recertification process and 104 nursing homes were not inspected over a four year period, the lawsuit states.

The problems were not isolated to nursing homes. Maryland’s emergency rooms have the longest wait times in the nation.

The average wait time for the state’s 40 hospitals is about 9 hours, according to data from the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission.

Hospitals also reported dramatic rises in adverse incidents since the pandemic.