In your editorial of Feb. 19, discussing nursing home deaths, you state that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s directive was “consistent with federal guidelines.” That is not entirely true.
On March 25 the CDC’s directive was much more specific than the mandate that was sent to nursing facilities. The CDC stated that Covid-19 patients who are medically stable can be discharged from a hospital to a nursing home, but only if the nursing home can implement all recommended infection control procedures.
But once the state issued its March 25 advisory, nursing home operators said they felt they had no choice but to accept residents who were either known to be infected or suspected of being infected because the March 25 memo did not say anything about making sure that a nursing home could care for a patient before making an admission decision and said they “must comply with the expedited receipt of residents.”
In the month following the memo, nursing homes pleaded for relief from this order in vain.
The next day, on March 26, Dr. Elaine Healy of United Hebrew Geriatric called the radio talk show host Mark Levin to tell him about this mandate.
She described all of the obvious dangers that this would cause patients, and in her position as medical director of a facility housing patients she was very concerned. She had tried to reach someone in charge in the governor’s office with no success. Before anyone in Albany paid attention to the havoc this was causing, thousands had died needlessly. Nothing changed until May 2020 when this directive was nullified. The discussion with Dr. Healy can be found on line.
Add to this, his irresponsible No Bail legislation that enables criminals to walk out of jail to repeat the same crimes, sometimes on the same day, the disintegration of law and order throughout New York City, the destruction of businesses throughout NYC, the lack of schoolingfor our children and his fiscal irresponsibility (NY was $6 billion in the hole before we ever heard of Covid-19) are reasons enough to rid New York state of Cuomo rule once and for all.
Gayle Palmer
Williston Park
