MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-08-30 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Opinion | Cuomo Gets a Nursing Home Inspectio
|
wsj.com
Opinion | Cuomo Gets a Nursing Home Inspection
The Editorial Board
5-7 minutes
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo speaks at a press conference in New
York, Aug. 17.
Photo: Michael Brochstein/Zuma Press
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has resisted inquiries by the press and his
own Democratic Legislature into how his policy of returning Covid-19
patients to nursing homes contributed to an untold number of elderly
deaths. But New Yorkers may finally get an honest accounting thanks to
the Trump Justice Department.
Justice on Wednesday sent letters to Mr. Cuomo and the governors of
Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Jersey requesting virus data from their
nursing homes. DOJ says it wants to determine whether the states’ orders
“requiring admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes is
responsible for the deaths of nursing home residents.”
To recap: Mr. Cuomo decreed on March 25 that “no resident shall be
denied re-admission or admission to [a nursing home]” because of a virus
diagnosis. And he prohibited homes “from requiring a hospitalized
resident who is determined medically stable to be tested” for the virus
before admission. The other governors issued similar orders.
They were understandably worried that hospitals would be overwhelmed, so
they pushed to discharge elderly patients as soon as they were medically
stable. But as it turned out, 15% of New York hospital beds and 10% of
its intensive-care units remained unoccupied at the Covid-19 peak. Other
states also had spare capacity.
Yet Mr. Cuomo continued to send recovering Covid patients back to
nursing homes even when there were plenty of surge beds—both in a U.S.
Navy hospital ship, and the Javits Center hospital that the Trump
Administration built. A Brooklyn nursing home on April 9 asked the state
to transfer vulnerable patients to these field hospitals. Mr. Cuomo said no.
He finally rescinded his order on May 10, but he has denied that it
contributed to the virus’s spread in nursing homes or to New York’s high
death rate—which is second only to New Jersey’s and four times higher
than Texas’s. An apologia last month by his Department of Health claimed
New York’s share of nursing home deaths of all fatalities was the lowest
in the country. This is dishonest.
Mr. Cuomo’s administration has reported only deaths that occur while in
the nursing homes (6,600) while other states report the total number of
nursing-home residents who die. Many die in hospitals. A nursing home in
the Bronx said the state counted only four of its 21 resident deaths.
The Associated Press has reported that state health department surveys
show there are 13,000 more empty nursing home beds this year than expected.
Mr. Cuomo’s report claims nursing-home deaths peaked on April 8, but
this seems unlikely. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data
show that hospitalizations in New York among those over age 85 remained
high through early May while declining among other age groups. (See
nearby chart.)
Mr. Cuomo also claims his policy followed CDC guidance, but this too is
false. CDC guidance in March stated patients shouldn’t return to nursing
homes that can’t safely care for them. His own report noted that 20,000
nursing home workers were known to be infected by the end of April. If
workers were sick or quarantined, far better to have sent convalescing
patients to the Javits Center.
Democrat Richard Gottfried, the chair of the New York Assembly health
committee, called on an outside entity to investigate the nursing homes
since Mr. Cuomo’s Health Department and the state Attorney General may
be conflicted. “The problems in our nursing homes were there long before
Covid-19—problems like inadequate staffing, inadequate enforcement,” he
said.
Enter the U.S. Justice investigation. Mr. Cuomo accuses the Trump
Administration of a political vendetta. But the Civil Rights of
Institutionalized Persons Act protects nursing home residents, and on
March 3 Justice announced a probe to examine long-term facilities with
complaints of gross abuse and neglect.
One question to investigate is whether New York and the other states’
miserly Medicaid payments left nursing homes ill-prepared for the
pandemic. Another is whether sick residents were left to die because
they were already frail or incapacitated. This is what happened in
Sweden, which is why its death rate exceeds that of most European countries.
Policy mistakes are going to happen in a pandemic, especially amid early
uncertainty. But Mr. Cuomo refuses to acknowledge his deadly mistakes
while scolding the Trump Administration and Republican governors. Maybe
Justice can provide some political accountability.
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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