Patricia Castillo remembers when the Newfane Rehab and Well being Care Heart, the place her mom lived, notified her {that a} affected person had simply been admitted from a close-by Niagara County hospital with COVID-19.
Jill Sawyer, whose father lived on the identical nursing house, remembers getting notified, too. “It was only a demise sentence,” mentioned Sawyer. The virus raced by way of Newfane, killing Castillo’s mom and Sawyer’s father and 24 different residents.
“My father was solely 70 years previous,” Sawyer sighs, and he was nonetheless “shuffling round and calling me 20 occasions a day.” Now, she says the cellphone doesn’t ring and she or he misses that.
COVID-19 has killed no less than 11,000 to 12,000 nursing-home and assisted-living residents in New York, almost double what the state admits to. And because the deaths mount, so have the lies and cover-ups.
The carnage began in March, when hospitals inundated with COVID-19 sufferers insisted on clearing out aged sufferers, even when they have been nonetheless contaminated, and sending them to no matter nursing houses had empty beds. To swing that, they needed to do away with a security regulation requiring sufferers to check detrimental twice for COVID-19 earlier than being positioned in a house. The state Well being Division willingly complied.
On March 25, Gov. Cuomo’s Well being Division mandated that nursing houses needed to settle for COVID sufferers and barred requiring any COVID assessments for admission. Amenities like Newfane needed to fly blind, not understanding which incoming sufferers had it.
The American Well being Care Affiliation referred to as it a “recipe for catastrophe.” The Committee to Scale back An infection Deaths urged Cuomo to vary course.
As an alternative, New York’s well being commissioner, Howard Zucker, started fudging the demise statistics, which hid the implications: Till late April, New York had reported all nursing-home residents who died from COVID-19, whether or not they died on the house or after being hospitalized. That’s customary. However because the toll soared, the state quietly shifted to reporting solely deaths on the houses. That decreased the quantity to six,062 — horrible however solely half the reality.
The fact is, no less than one other 17,000 elder-care sufferers with COVID-19 have been despatched to hospitals, and an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 of them have died, with demise charges highest for these on ventilators, in line with the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation’s mortality charges.
Backside line: 11,000 to 12,000 nursing-home and assisted-living residents have died from COVID-19, half of all of the virus deaths statewide.
The health-care assume tank American Dedication additionally pegs the deaths at 12,000.
That terrible demise toll didn’t should occur. It’s six occasions the variety of nursing-home fatalities as in Florida and California, each extra populous states.
Cuomo additionally tried to shift the blame to President Trump, pointing to a Trump administration assertion issued on March 13. However the Cuomo administration is twisting it. The assertion really useful nursing houses admit sufferers even when they have been coming from a hospital battling COVID-19, not that sufferers with COVID-19 themselves needed to be admitted.
Actually, on March 18, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention cautioned in opposition to permitting COVID-19 to invade a nursing house, warning that “it has the potential to end in excessive assault charges amongst residents, employees members and guests.”
Cuomo’s “try and deflect blame onto the president sickens me,” says Castillo.
New York caught with its lethal coverage till Might 10, method too lengthy. Why? As a result of it wasn’t a mistake. It was a sell-out.
The hospital trade’s lobbying group, the Higher New York Hospital Affiliation, is a mega-donor to the state Democratic Celebration’s housekeeping committee, which helps elect Cuomo. It gave over $1 million in 2018. The hospital trade holds extra sway in Albany than actual property or Wall Avenue.
No surprise Cuomo’s Well being Division does the trade’s bidding.
Castillo is pained that her mom needed to die alone, “remoted from those that liked her.” She hopes somebody will “maintain the governor’s ft to the hearth.”
As a minimum, New Yorkers ought to demand a well being division that protects the susceptible as an alternative of catering to political donors.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York, the chairwoman of the Committee to Scale back An infection Deaths and creator of the forthcoming guide “The Subsequent Pandemic.”
