Cuomo Administration "Froze" Over Nursing Home Data Requests

[TTL News 316]

Quote

 

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide told Democratic lawmakers that the administration took months to release data revealing how many people living at nursing homes died of COVID-19 because officials “froze” over worries the information was “going to be used against us.”

Republicans who term the comment admission of a “cover-up” are now calling for investigations into and the resignations of both Cuomo and the aide, secretary to the governor Melissa DeRosa. And a growing number of Democrats are joining calls to rescind Cuomo’s emergency executive powers, blasting the administration’s defense of its secrecy.

“To continual defenders of NY Gov. Cuomo how is this ok?” New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a Democrat, tweeted. “How is it not #Trump like? And when FORCED into admission, the most you get is a sorry we got caught...and not even directly from him or to the families.”

The disclosure of DeRosa’s comments, made on a Wednesday conference call with Democratic legislative leaders, came as the Democratic governor — a third-term Democrat who says he’ll run again in 2022 and penned a book touting his handling of the pandemic — and his administration were already facing backlash over their handling and reporting of outbreaks in nursing homes. 

Cuomo refused for months to release data on how the pandemic has hit nursing home residents, instead pointing to figures more favorable to his administration. Experts say the release of more — and accurate — data can shape policy to help save people’s lives.

“These are people’s parents and grandparents,” Fordham University political science professor Christina Greer said. “They’re people. We should be more specific. Cooking the books on the data isn’t just about nursing homes, it’s about numbers of people infected and possibly dead.”

 

Read the rest of the article here.

[KarenK 384]

Can not wait to see how this all plays out.

[Ann 270]

1 minute ago, KarenK said:

Can not wait to see how this all plays out.

His ego won’t let him resign.  I believe he thinks he’s untouchable.

[Chris 2,213]

One of the fundamentals of managing a crisis is honesty. 

As I've mentioned before, I've had to manage some doozies back in my days as a paramedic. And usually in hindsight it was easy to say, "Well, maybe we could have done this differently." The key was in documentation and being able to explain why, in the heat of the moment, in the fog of war, you made that call. I can't think of a single time where that didn't keep me from getting called on the carpet. 

"Why did you ________."

"Well, because _______."

Open and honest, every time. If you make a mistake, you acknowledge it and hopefully give good reasoning why you made that decision. 

The state made a mistake. And while forgiveness isn't mine to give, I can perhaps understand why certain decisions were made. 

What I can't understand or forgive is covering your tracks.

Anyone who wants him to resign may as well wish for the moon, because he won't. I won't be surprised if a staffer does, perhaps even DeRosa. But Cuomo isn't going anywhere and frankly, I think the state GOP is beginning to look a little too eager to make political hay out of this. 

[Adam 377]

8 hours ago, KarenK said:

Can not wait to see how this all plays out.

He will weather it just like Gov. Northum did last summer did after the black-face pic came out during the BLM furor

[Chris 2,213]

Seems like this is picking up some steam on the major news networks though.

[Ars76 69]

Just to throw a couple thoughts out there-

I remember when the state put out the guidelines that the nursing homes needed to take their patients back from the hospitals.  I was very happy with that decision.  At that time we didn't have great testing capabilities,  we were worried about census surging and exceeding the staffing capabilities of the hospitals.  Nursing homes are not set up for testing/diagnosing medical issues in many cases,  and it is often easiest to send the patients to the ED for a work up.  

However,  to expect hospitals to be able to keep patients who did not need inpt care, or who only wanted palliative care, because ther the nursing  homes weren't sure they wanted to/ were capable of safely providing care for them if NOT the answer.  

Yes,  nursing homes have staffing issues (so do hospitals), yes,  PPE supplies were low (same in some hospitals). And overwhelming hospitals with nursing home patients would be bad for the ALL the patients (in the hospital/ waiting in the ED for an inpt bed/ not able to get into the ED because of the rooms being full). 

To say that a patient with minimal to no symptoms required a hospital bed is crazy. And would potentially take a bed away from someone who did need that level of care. 

If nursing homes needed help with staffing or PPE supplies they just had to ask the state.  I have not heard of any nursing homes who asked for help and didn't receive it.  I have heard of nursing homes who had the national guard helping for a period of time. 

And for anyone to think that the nursing home staff did NOT bring COVID into the nursing homes... that's just crazy. 

The part of the AG report that I think was most upsetting was the private nsg home that did not take the steps needed (presumably for $ reasons), and the CHRONIC staffing issues that nursing homes have faced for decades. Staffing models/pay issues/ and the work itself are issues that have not been addressed for years.  And when the system was stressed the cracks got bigger.  The same thing will happen in the future if the only thing that people pay attention to from this report is the hospital  vs nsg home placement debate.

So.... coming back to where we are now.  It's OK (I guess)  if you want to be upset about the delay in releasing the info.  Anything that looks like a cover up is always going to make things worse.  I can't see a big difference in counting nsg home pts who die in the hospital in the "hospital deaths" bucket vs the "nsg home deaths" bucket - as long as they were counted somewhere. 

And I think Cuomo was great during the spring/ summer of 2020. At this point I think he should give up most/all of the emergency powers he was given during the height of the outbreak at this point. I don't think he needs them at this point.  But I think the politicians in Albany/pundits should be able to make that point without politicising this issue.

So- just a few thoughts I've been kicking around🙃

 

In case you want to read about the AG report:

https://ag.ny.gov/press-release/2021/attorney-general-james-releases-report-nursing-homes-response-covid-19

[MsKreed 1,201]

I can understand the perspective of hospitals that feared facing surges they may not be equipped to handle.  

However, it has been long understood (and recognized by the CDC and infectious disease experts worldwide) that contagious diseases spread fastest in enclosed congregate living environments…military/cruise ships, prisons, and residential care facilities. Anyplace where people eat, sleep and interact within the same communal quarters and sharing dining and/or bathroom facilities – all day every day. That's why I think every effort should have been made (as it was later after his May 10th reversal) to avoid [re]introducing potentially contagious residents into a congregate community.

That was also the very concern Governor Cuomo cited when he ordered jails across the state to release parole violators, (who are, as a population, less vulnerable to covid complications/death) rather than risk introducing them into the (closed) congregate residential environment of the state prisons (just a few days after his directive requiring nursing homes to accept contagious patients).

Whether someone died in a hospital or nursing home (or a prison) may not seem pertinent to the big picture of the losses suffered.  But where and how they were exposed seems like extremely valuable information that can and should be used to help build an understanding and contribute to plans going forward.

 

19 hours ago, Ars76 said:

I have not heard of any nursing homes who asked for help and didn't receive it.  I have heard of nursing homes who had the national guard helping for a period of time. 

I hadn’t heard of any support the NY National Guard provided during the period when the order was issued a until it was reversed. I’d be interested in links to them, as the media has done a poor job covering that in contrast to other (endless) coverage of covid measures.

I was aware that they assisted in assembling and distributing test kits to nursing homes. But the articles I saw were in May I thought – after the order was reversed (to prohibit rather than require HN’s admitting positive patients).

[Chris 2,213]

47 minutes ago, MsKreed said:

 

I hadn’t heard of any support the NY National Guard provided during the period when the order was issued a until it was reversed. I’d be interested in links to them, as the media has done a poor job covering that in contrast to other (endless) coverage of covid measures.

ARS76 can elaborate if she wants, but I asked about it last night. The National Guard she refers to was the PA guard, called in to assist throughout PA including Bradford Co. I believe 

Here’s the best I could find, though not local:https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-national-guard-20200419-w3fzuuebo5fd7khwrql5yul4au-story.html%3foutputType=amp

[Ars76 69]

Congregate living conditions are more difficult to manage when the issue is a contagious disease.  But a hospital isn't an improvement over a nursing home.  

Letting people out of jail/ prison (right or wrong)  probably let's most of them go back to their home.  Not too many people in nursing homes had the luxury of a family member who would be able to care for them in a home setting.

Tracing the location of infection was possible early on,  but once an area reached the point where community transmission was wide spread it is all but impossible.  40% of patients are asymptomatic.  Very few people (nsg home staff are the only ones that come to mind) are being screened on a regular basis) - and the some of the tests used to screen were not approved for that use (meant for symptomatic people with presumably higher viral load levels) 

It's was / is a hot mess... hopefully things keep getting better - but in order to really learn from this (what worked, what didn't) I think we need to be better at analyzing the experience without second guessing / politicizing it (on the national, state and local levels)