Governor Andrew Cuomo is blaming nursing homes for following an order issued by his health department in March to house COVID-19 patients in the facilities, which has resulted in an explosion of deaths in nursing homes across his state.
“The obligation is on the nursing home to say ‘I can’t take a COVID-positive person,’” Cuomo claimed at a recent press conference – adding that it is the responsibility of the nursing home to say if they are “too crowded,” “too busy,” or if they do “not have enough PPE” to house COVID patients.
“If they say ‘I can’t take the person,’ they can’t take the person so that’s how it works,” Cuomo said.
However, Cuomo is misrepresenting the actual text of the orders issued by his administration. Cuomo did not give nursing homes any choice but to take COVID-19 patients in a move that would go on to earn him a great deal of scrutiny.
“No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the [nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19,” the order read.
“NHs are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or re-admission,” it continued.
Cuomo is deflecting blame after widespread outrage over his administration’s order that has doomed many of the most vulnerable New York residents to painful, miserable, lonely deaths.
Big League Politics has reported about the “blood” that is on Cuomo’s hands for putting the elderly at risk:
The Health Department of New York made a deadly decision on March 25 when it forced nursing homes to take in people who held a positive diagnosis for coronavirus in certain cases.
It was determined by the state of New York that these coronavirus patients were “medically stable,” but in actuality, they were far from stable. They still carried the disease that could be easily passed to others in these crowded facilities.
The New York Post reported that in one particularly morbid case, coronavirus patients were admitted to a nursing home in Queens with body bags accompanying them.
“My colleague noticed that one of the boxes was extremely heavy. Curious as to what could possibly be making that particular box so much heavier than the rest, he opened it,” an executive from the nursing home said to The Post on Thursday.
“The first two coronavirus patients were accompanied by five body bags,” the whistleblower added.
The body bags would soon be filled with corpses as coronavirus swept through the hospital among the most vulnerable population. Thirty residents would die from coronavirus-related in just days after the first COVID+ patients were admitted at one nursing home alone.
“Cuomo has blood on his hands. He really does. There’s no way to sugarcoat this,” the health care executive said.
“Why in the world would you be sending coronavirus patients to a nursing home, where the most vulnerable population to this disease resides?” they added.
Cuomo will never take responsibility for the deadly impacts of his failed public policy regarding the coronavirus pandemic.