By Jared Evan
Queens councilman Eric Ulrich, a Republican, is demanding the city investigate Cuomo’s controversial executive order mandating that nursing homes and other long-term care facilities admit seniors still positive for coronavirus after being discharged from hospitals, the NY Post reported.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5.1 million people live in nursing homes or residential care facilities, representing 1.6% of the U.S. population. And yet residents in such facilities account for 42 percent of all deaths from COVID-19, for states that report such statistics.
More than 5,300 nursing home patients in New York have died from Covid-19, and as an Albany Times Union account notes, critics blame this policy. Cuomo has now tacitly admitted the error by reversing the policy, requiring patients to test negative before they are sent to nursing homes, Professor Glenn Reynolds wrote in USA Today.
Reynolds, University of Tennessee law professor chronicled the entire situation in an article called” Why oh why is NY Governor Andrew Cuomo being praised for his coronavirus response”?
He pointed out : Writing in the New York Post, Michael Goodwin notes: “First, nursing homes never believed they had any right to deny infected patients, saying the order from the state Department of Health would have included that option if that were the intent. The order’s language did not offer any hint of flexibility… Worse, the order came without warning, took effect immediately and gave the homes no time to set up segregated beds and staff. All nursing homes, good and bad, large, and small, were treated as if they were fit for an influx of coronavirus patients.
The second problem with Cuomo’s claim is the case of the Cobble Hill Health Center, which lost at least 55 patients to the virus. The CEO, Donny Tuchman, showed reporters April emails where he asked state health officials for assistance, and was turned down. He also asked them if COVID-19 patients he had could be sent instead to the Javits Center or the Navy ship Comfort, both of which were far below capacity. He was rejected again. It’s true there was one-way Albany officials did help beleaguered nursing homes. The packages of equipment they sent included body bags.”
After several articles like Reynold’s, and finally a little media focus on this incredible issue, an elected official is interested. In learning more.
Queens lawmaker Eric Ulrich wrote: “As a body, we should immediately commence an investigation into the Governor’s handling of the nursing homes throughout this crisis,” the legislator wrote Friday in a letter to Council Speaker Corey Johnson and Councilman Ritchie Torres, who chairs the Committee on Oversight and Investigation.
“If he tries to impede that investigation in any way, the City Council should utilize our subpoena power to compel testimony,” Ulrich continued.
“Thus far, the Governor has avoided answering tough questions about his decision. His recent appearance on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time was equally disgraceful”, he continued.
Cuomo has been universally praised for his response to COVID-19. His calming press conferences have been covered daily for the last 3 months in TJV. The nursing home issue has barely been touched upon on TV news and cable entertainment-news outlets. One would think a mistake this tremendous, which resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths would be the top story in the nation.
In Cuomo’s defense, he was not the only leader who chose this path. California, Massachusetts, and New Jersey adopted the same policies to place COVID-19 infected patients in nursing homes for the elderly, resulting in high mortality rates there.
The amount of deaths in NY and NJ nursing homes exceeds the total amount of COVID-19 deaths in the entire states of Florida, Texas, Georgia, and Ohio. Texas for example, still has under 1500 deaths in total for the entire state. Over 5000 New York’s seniors; they were parents, grandparents, friends, some of them served this country, perished due to a sloppy policy based on fear and panic. New York was indeed in a panic when Cuomo decided to impose this executive order. There was fear of not enough hospital space expressed daily for weeks in his press conferences.
Almost 3 months later, the makeshift hospitals which the city spent millions on building in each borough were barely used. The field hospital in Red Hook Brooklyn, which cost $21 million to set up, never took a single patient.
The governor ignored emails and requests for the policy to stop, until it was too late. The CEO of Cobble Hill Health Center displayed the emails of him asking for assistance to the media, and he was ignored. The makeshift hospitals remained empty. Even worse, there were warnings from the start of the executive order, that the idea was incredulous.
The Foundation for Economic education pointed out in an article called “How States Turned Nursing Homes Into ‘Slaughter Houses’ By Forcing Them to Admit Discharged COVID-19 Patients” the following: Health experts and trade associations had warned early on that forcing nursing homes to take on newly discharged COVID-19 patients was a recipe for disaster, noting that such facilities didn’t have the ability to properly quarantine the infected.
“This approach will introduce the highly contagious virus into more nursing homes. There will be more hospitalizations for nursing home residents who need ventilator care and ultimately, a higher number of deaths. Issuing such an order is a mistake and there is a better solution,” American Health Care Association President and CEO Mark Parkinson announced in March after New York’s order went into effect.
David Grabowski, a professor of health policy at Harvard Medical School, sounded incredulous when asked about the policy.
“Nursing homes are working so hard to keep the virus out, and now we’re going to be introducing new COVID-positive patients?” Grabowski told NBC.
Richard Mollot, executive director of the Long-Term Care Community Coalition in New York, echoed that sentiment.
“To have a mandate that nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients has put many people in grave danger,” Mollot told the Bucks County Courier Time.
Only time will tell if our leadership is held accountable for this tremendous error. People, who make mistakes at their jobs are often financially penalized or fired. Should a Governor who cost over 5000 lives by a poor decision by praised endlessly by the partisan, agenda driven mainstream broadcast media and the public denied the reality of what actually happened? Will we at least see a universal acknowledgment of this fatal error?
