Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) has demanded a federal probe into a mandate from Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D-NY) policy requiring nursing homes accept coronavirus patients who had been discharged from hospitals but still needed care.
The New York Post reported that Stefanik joined a chorus of lawmakers and others who requested a more robust probe than one already announced by state Attorney General Letitia James. Stefanik added her voice to the demand after a new report found New York was no longer counting patients who traveled from a nursing home to a hospital and died from COVID-19 as nursing home deaths. The move came even as more than 5,300 patients died in nursing homes – a number that relies on the new counting method.
“Today I joined my @NewYorkGOP colleagues in the House to call for a federal investigation of Cuomo’s failed nursing home policies. NOW they admit they unethically changed the way they report nursing home deaths. An INEXCUSABLE tragedy for NY – NEED ANSWERS,” Stefanik tweeted.
As The Daily Wire previously reported, Cuomo’s Health Department issued a mandate on March 25 that forced nursing homes to accept COVID-19-positive patients that had been released from hospitals. This injected the coronavirus into the most vulnerable population in the state. At a nursing home in Queens – which had no coronavirus patients until receiving two from a nearby hospital – at least 30 patients ended up dying after the patients arrived. Another feature of the mandate was the deliveries of five body bags a week.
“Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” an executive at the nursing home told the Post. “Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home, where the most vulnerable population to this disease resides?”
When asked about the policy, Cuomo tried to claim nursing homes were simply greedy and wanted the coronavirus patients for money.
“And the regulation is common sense: If you can’t provide adequate care, you can’t have the patient in your facility and that’s your basic fiduciary obligation — I would say, ethical obligation — and it’s also your legal obligation,” he said at a coronavirus briefing earlier this month. “Now, when a person gets transferred, they lose a patient, they lose that revenue, I understand, but the relationship is, the contract is, ‘You have this resident, you get paid, you must provide adequate care.’”
The mandate, however, offered little notice for nursing homes to prepare to receive patients, and no listed way for them to refuse patients if they could not adequately quarantine them.
As the Post reported, Cuomo “effectively curbed” the nursing-home mandate last Sunday, saying now that hospital patients must test negative for the coronavirus before getting discharged to nursing homes. Months too late.
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