ALBANIA – New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report on Thursday finding that the state Department of Health has as many as 50 percent of the aforementioned deaths in the nursing home related to the coronavirus.
The 76-page report, released Thursday morning, follows a months-long investigation by the Attorney General’s Office into allegations of neglect of patients and other behaviors that endanger the health and safety of residents and employees, including information that nursing homes could not properly isolate the residents who tested. positive for COVID-19 and demanded that sick employees continue to work or experience retaliation or termination.
In addition to the contempt of death at the Department of Health, the investigation also found that the lack of compliance with infection control protocols by nursing homes endangers residents, and that facilities with lower staff members before pandemic had a higher COVID-19 mortality rate . James’s office is continuing its investigation into the allegations, including an in-depth investigation into practices at more than twenty nursing homes where reporting is ‘particularly worrying’.
“As the pandemic and our investigation continue, it is imperative that we understand why the residents of New York City have suffered unnecessarily at such an alarming rate,” James said in a news release. “While we cannot bring back the individuals we lost to this crisis, this report seeks to provide transparency that the public deserves and to encourage increasing action to protect our most vulnerable residents.”
In early March 2020, the office received complaints of neglect related to COVID, and on April 23, the Attorney General drew up a hotline to take complaints of abuse and neglect. According to James’ office, the hotline received 770 complaints by August 3 and another 179 complaints by November 16.
The deeper investigations into specific nursing homes are the result of preliminary findings that include:
- Insufficient personal protective equipment for nursing home staff.
- Inadequate COVID-19 testing for residents and staff during the early stages of the pandemic, putting residents at greater risk for harm.
- The state’s current compensation model provides a financial incentive to nonprofit owners to transfer funds to related parties instead of investing in higher levels of staff and equipment, but rather raising their bottom line.
- Lack of compliance by nursing homes with executive orders that require communication with family members.
The report also found that the New York guidelines from March, which may require the admission of COVID-19 patients to nursing homes, increased the risk of others contracting the virus at community facilities, suggesting that an internal report which was released by the state last year was rejected. as a possibility.
Lawmakers and epidemiologists have been skeptical about the Department of Health’s report, released in July, which blames Cuomo’s administration for thousands of deaths in the nursing home attributed to COVID-19. The report concluded that the controversial memo issued by the health agency at the end of March because of the rising pandemic was not to blame. Instead, the report concluded that the deaths occurred because staff working at the homes brought the contagious disease into the facilities months earlier before the spread of coronavirus in the state was known.
Since the report was released, lawmakers have called for an independent inquiry into the matter, which disputes the reliability of an internal review of state practices. In fact, lawmakers even questioned whether the Attorney General’s office could be impartial in an investigation. Assemblyman Richard Gottfried disputed the effectiveness of James’ office because he regularly works with the Department of Health and represents government agencies in lawsuits and other investigations.
The controversial memorandum issued by DOH on March 25 did not allow nursing homes to deny residents access or readmission, solely on the basis of a positive or suspected COVID-19 diagnosis. If a COVID-19-positive patient in a hospital was medically stable and in need of nursing care, many nursing homes believed that the directive required them to accept the person.
DOH’s report of July last year – in which he pleaded not guilty to the deaths – said the conclusions were supported by responses to the survey submitted to the agency by nursing homes. Yet DOH has since refused to provide the Times Union with the underlying nursing facilities, which form the basis of the July 6 report. DOH cited two releases to deny the Times Union’s request, but declined to say how the releases apply to the specific records requested.
The number of deaths reported by the state does not include residents who were infected, transferred to hospitals and subsequently died.
The Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative Albany think tank, has filed a lawsuit to force the Department of Health to provide information on hospital deaths. are filled in by old age homes and submitted to the state.
The Department of Health, in its ongoing responses to the Empire Center’s request, claimed that the delays were unavoidable as it conducted a months-long “diligent search” for the material.
The calls to the data are twofold. Democratic State Senator James Skoufis, chairman of the chamber’s inquiry committee, warned Monday that he would support the use of subpoena power to get answers to COVID-19 deaths in the nursing home ahead of a Feb. 3 hearing. The next day, the health budget hearing was rescheduled from February 3 to February 25, at the request of the governor’s office.