New York may have neglected thousands of COVID-19 deaths among nursing home residents, the state’s attorney general charged in a report on Thursday that dealt a blow to administration Andrew Cuomo’s oft-repeated claims that his state is doing better than others at it. protect vulnerable.
The 76-page report found an under-figure of more than 50%, which backs up the findings of an Associated Press investigation last year that focused on New York being one of the few states in the nation which counts residents who died in a nursing home. property and not those who later died in hospitals.
Such a lower figure would mean that the current official number of 8,711 nursing homes affected by the virus is in fact more than 13,000, raising New York from No. 6 to the highest in the country.
“While we cannot bring back the individuals we have lost through this crisis, this report seeks to provide transparency that the public deserves,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
The report by a fellow Democrat official substantiated Cuomo’s frequent argument that the criticism of his handling of the virus in nursing homes was part of a political ‘blame game’, and it justified thousands of families who thought their loved ones were being left out. of counts to promote the governor’s image as a pandemic hero.
“I think it’s important that my mother is counted,” said Vivian Zayas, whose 78-year-old mother died in April after contracting COVID-19 at a nursing home in West Islip, New York. “Families like mine knew these numbers were incorrect.”
Cuomo’s office and the state health service have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
James has been investigating the differences between the number of deaths reported by the Department of Health and the number of deaths reported by the houses themselves for months.
Her researchers looked at a sample of 62 of the approximately 600 nursing homes in the state. They reported 1,914 resident deaths from COVID-19, while the State Department of Health recorded only 1,229 deaths at those same facilities. For example, an unnamed facility had an official death toll of 11, but the Attorney General’s investigation found that 40 had actually died.
AP’s analysis in August concluded that the state could underestimate the number of deaths by as much as 65%, based on discrepancies between the totals and numbers reported to federal regulators. That analysis, like James’s report, was based on just part of the data, rather than a comprehensive look.
To date, despite requests from public records of the AP and repeated pleas from state and federal lawmakers, the New York health department has yet to produce the full number of nursing home residents who have died in hospitals and in the nursing home. Health Commissioner Howard Zucker has said several times that the state is working on such data.
Senator Gustavo Rivera, a Democrat who has accused the Cuomo government of the incomplete death toll, said he was “unfortunately not surprised” by the report.
“Families who have lost loved ones deserve honest answers,” Rivera said. “For their sake, I hope this report will help us reveal the truth and pursue policies to prevent such tragedies from happening in the future.”
Cuomo, who released a book last fall praising his leadership in dealing with the virus, is not shy about using the lower death toll in New York’s nursing home as an argument that his state is doing better than others in the U.S. take care of those in such facilities.
“There is also no doubt that we are in this hyper-political environment, so everyone wants to point the finger,” Cuomo told CBS “This Morning” in October. “New York, actually we’re number 46 out of 50 in terms of percentage of deaths in nursing homes – 46 out of 50. So yes, people died in nursing homes. … but 46 out of 50, it’s not primarily a problem in New York. “
The attorney general’s report also focused on the controversial March 25 policy in New York that wanted to create more space in hospitals by releasing recovering COVID-19 patients into nursing homes, which critics say was a driving factor in the process. causing outbreaks in nursing homes.
James’ report said those admissions “may have contributed to an increased risk of infection in nursing home residents and subsequent fatalities,” and noted that at least 4,000 nursing home residents with COVID-19 died after that counseling. But James’s report said the matter requires further investigation to definitively prove such a link.
The New York health department released a much-criticized report last summer claiming that the March 25 policy, which was reversed in May, was “not a significant factor” in the number of deaths.
James’ review also found that a lack of infection control in nursing homes puts residents at an increased risk of injury, while nursing homes with lower federal staff scores had higher COVID-19 death rates.
“As the pandemic and our investigations continue,” she wrote, “it is imperative that we understand why the residents of nursing homes in New York were needlessly suffering at such an alarming rate.”