Calls are rising for an impartial investigation of the Cuomo administration’s dealing with of nursing properties amid the coronavirus disaster — and rightly so.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s personal investigation, which he handpicked protégé Letitia James to guide, plainly received’t unravel many key points: The gov and his workforce received’t even admit that forcing amenities to soak up COVID-positive sufferers was a mistake. That mandate remains to be in impact.
Again on March 10, Cuomo bragged of how the state was defending residents of New York’s 1,100 nursing properties and adult-care amenities. “You see that within the 22 deaths in Washington in comparison with New York with no deaths,” he mentioned. “Proper? Identical variety of circumstances, look how a lot greater Washington is. As a result of it’s about senior residents.”
Sure, the aged are probably the most virus-vulnerable, with these aged 60 and up accounting for 85 p.c of Empire State corona deaths.
However Cuomo didn’t shield them: Washington state has fewer than 1,000 coronavirus deaths complete, whereas New York misplaced 5,000 lives in nursing and adult-care properties alone.
And, two weeks after Cuomo’s massive brag, Well being Commissioner Howard Zucker ordered nursing properties to soak up corona-positive sufferers. Neither Zucker nor Cuomo defined that March 25 mandate. The gov insists it’s consistent with federal pointers, but they name for no such regulation. The Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention suggested nursing properties: “Maintain COVID-19 from getting into your facility.”
How did his workforce even suppose up the rule? Did the politically potent hospital foyer push for it?
The gov is disingenuous at greatest when he claims properties want merely inform the Well being Division if they’ll’t deal with coronavirus sufferers. Donny Tuchman, CEO of Brooklyn’s Cobble Hill Well being Middle, requested about transferring out a few of his COVID-positive sufferers again on April 10. Greater than 50 of his residents have died.
Zucker’s order not solely forbids nursing properties from rejecting the contaminated — it doesn’t even allow them to require testing for the illness earlier than admission. Solely in late April, a month after the “should settle for” order, did the state start reaching out to verify on properties’ skill to manage exams, officers in a number of counties informed The Put up. Ulster County Govt Pat Ryan supplied to choose check kits up in Albany himself — and by no means heard again.
The James investigation will give attention to whether or not properties are “following the foundations” — not on these lethal guidelines themselves. An impartial probe is a should.