Upstate lawmakers, relatives push New York DOH for more nursing home COVID-19 data, visitation
David RobinsonRelatives of New York nursing home residents who died due to COVID-19 criticized state health officials this week for failing to disclose information and protect frail and elderly people during the pandemic.
During a state Legislature hearing Monday, several people testified about their family members being killed by the coronavirus while it spread like wildfire through long-term care facilities this spring.
The stories included concerns about the state’s official tally under-reporting nursing home deaths tied to the virus and hindering the effort to save lives.
“Accountability and justice demand that we have a more accurate account,” said Jerry Maldonado, whose mother died after he says she contracted COVID-19 at a Rockland County nursing home.
Further, some Republican state lawmakers expressed frustration with the state Department of Health’s absence from the hearing on Monday, which focused on upstate nursing homes outside the New York City metro area.
“I think upstate deserves better and the families and people who have been affected by this…also deserve a representative from the Department of Health,” said Assemblyman Jake Ashby, R-Castleton, Rensselaer County.
It all came after Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker attended a hearing last week on the issue, with a focus on New York City, Long Island and Westchester County. During that hearing, lawmakers slammed Zucker over potentially downplaying the number of nursing homes deaths to defend state policies.
One key issue is the state Department of Health decision to only report the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 inside the facility, omitting those who died at hospitals.
As a result, New York’s current official COVID-19 death toll of 6,421 nursing home residents could be missing hundreds, if not thousands, of fatalities linked to the long-term care facilities, according to advocates and health policy analysis.
Last week, Zucker vowed to release new nursing home death data to include the cases at hospitals, citing an ongoing review of the numbers.
Republicans had urged the Democratic-controlled Legislature to issue a subpoena to Zucker to testify at the hearing Monday.
The Department of Health didn’t respond to questions about its plans for releasing the new data, instead referring to a statement Monday by Melissa DeRosa, top aide to Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
“Dr. Zucker participated for hours last week. We said if the legislature has additional questions, they could submit them in writing and we’ll respond to everything in writing—which I assume they would make public,” DeRosa said during a press briefing.
State Sen. Gustavo Rivera, D-Bronx, said Monday that legislators would compile questions for DOH and other witness testifying at the hearings, and responses must come back within three weeks.
Yet Sen. Sue Serino, R-Hyde Park, said the fact state health officials did not attend the hearing Monday showed a “blatant disregard” for the attempt to address issues at upstate nursing homes.
Cuomo, meanwhile, pushed back against the suggestion the state could benefit from a fully independent review of how COVID-19 spread in its nursing homes.
“Nobody is ever going to agree on who an independent expert is," he said on a conference call. "Everybody has their own expert, right? Everybody has their own opinion.”
More: How many nursing home residents died of COVID in New York? What we know (and don't know)
What nursing home groups said about COVID-19 deaths in NY
During nearly three hours of testimony Monday, leaders of trade groups representing long-term care facilities statewide described a variety of problems that contributed to the COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes.
Some of the key issues included shortages of personal protective equipment and COVID-19 testing supplies for nursing homes, which remain major concerns as New York braces for another surge of cases this fall.
Jim Clyne, president and chief executive of LeadingAge New York, said state officials delivered 14 million of pieces of personal protective equipment, or PPE, to nursing homes, but it lasted a matter of days.
“It’s simply not enough,” he said, citing how nursing homes burned through 12 million pieces of PPE, such as masks, gloves and gowns in a week during the pandemic peak in April.
More: COVID what's next: What went wrong during first spike and how Northeast is preparing for another
Some nursing homes are still struggling to find protective gear as they try to meet a state order requiring each facility to stockpile 60 days of PPE by the end of September, Clyne said, adding the surging cases nationally are straining the supply chain.
Stephen Hanse, president and CEO of the Health Facilities Association and Center for Assisted Living trade groups, said the PPE shortages in part stemmed from state and federal officials prioritizing hospitals over nursing homes.
Staffing shortages at New York nursing homes have historically been a problem and worsened during the pandemic, he said, as authorities focused on preventing the virus from overrunning hospitals downstate.
“That same focus needs to be redirected to nursing homes,” he said, adding some supply shortage risks are most acute in rural upstate communities.
Some relatives of nursing home residents also raised concerns about the lack of transparency during the pandemic.
Maldonado, who lives in Newburgh, Orange County, said his mother died after he repeatedly tied to get information about the virus’s spread at her nursing home from the facility and state agencies.
“We were deprived of the basic right to know, of informed consent, and quite frankly I will never forgive the Department of Health for taking away that right,” he said.
Maldonado said his mother did not show up in the official state COVID-19 death toll in part because she went untested for the virus.
What nursing home groups say about visitation policy
Nursing home groups also urged the state Health Department to reevaluate a policy that allowed limited visitation to resume at nursing homes and long-term care facilities after a months-long ban aimed at preventing the spread of COVID-19.
The new rules, which took effect July 15, only allow visitors to facilities that have been without COVID-19 for at least 28 days, a threshold set by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Hanse suggested the state should consider reducing the threshold to 14 days, citing the typical quarantine period for those exposed to the virus and the low infection rate in New York, which hovered around 1% in recent weeks for many communities.
“We have residents who have not had in-person visitation with their loved one since late February, early March and that is really unacceptable,” he said.
Of the state's 613 nursing homes, only 117 facilities have met the criteria and begun allowing visitors again, Zucker said last week. A total of 209 facilities had completed their policies so far seeking to allow visitors.
Clyne described the current visitation policy in New York as unnecessarily strict.
“Safety has to be first, but we believe we could safely do more visits than are happening now,” he said.
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David Robinson is the state health care reporter for the USA TODAY Network New York. He can be reached atdrobinson@gannett.com and followed on Twitter:@DrobinsonLoHud