The New York State nursing Home matter is still heating up, with Cuomo coming under fire from lawmakers of his own party and Republicans. Pictured is an elderly patient en route to the hospital last April.
On February 22, New York State Democratic lawmakers filed a resolution calling for condemnation of Governor Cuomo’s lapses in nursing home policy during the Epidemic and his deception of death figures afterward, and legislation to remove his authority to handle the epidemic; on the same day, Republican lawmakers in the state Senate and Assembly joined together and also announced that they would draft proposals to strip Cuomo of his emergency authority over the epidemic. At the same Time, people from all walks of Life have come forward to question Cuomo’s role as the “kingpin” of New York State politics, calling for the establishment of an independent investigative body to conduct a full investigation into Cuomo’s actions that may constitute a criminal offense.
Cheng Wing-kai, a Chinese-American Navy veteran who assisted patients at the Javits Center last year, said the Javits Center is useless and useless. (Cheng Yongjia Facebook)
Democratic state Rep. Kim Tui-Sik, who was threatened by Cuomo for pursuing the truth about the nursing home deaths, issued another post calling for Cuomo’s impeachment. (Jin Tui-Si’s official website)
Democrats unite to challenge Cuomo, Kim Tui-sik advocates impeachment
According to the New York Post, eleven New York State Democratic lawmakers submitted a proposal Monday in Albany, the state capital, calling not only for an end to the governor’s emergency powers, but also for his “obstruction of justice” in concealing the number of deaths at the nursing home, something Cuomo has denied until today. This is something Cuomo has denied until today.
The proposal states their reasons for the proposal: 1. Cuomo’s team underreported more than 50 percent of the number of nursing home deaths due to COVID-19; 2. Cuomo included a provision in last year’s state budget granting legal immunity to hospital or nursing home administrators for making “bad decisions” during an outbreak; 5. “Cuomo has never taken responsibility for the consequences of his own March 25 executive order prohibiting nursing homes from refusing to accept COVID-19 positive patients, which was rescinded on May 10.
The proposal continued, “Throughout the ordeal, the governor claimed to not have the time and manpower to provide the information needed, yet he had time to write a book celebrating his own response to New York’s COVID-19 in which he fell back on producing and distributing self-recognition posters before the worst of the outbreak was over.”
On the same day, Democratic State Assemblyman Ron Kim of Queens, who was intimidated by Cuomo for going after him, wrote an article in Newsweek advocating for Cuomo’s “impeachment.
“It’s time to be brave, hold him accountable and investigate his cover-up of information about nursing homes.” Kim Tui-Shi wrote that his own uncle died in a nursing home last year as a result of the epidemic. “It’s time to undo the bad policies that led to unnecessary deaths; it’s time to start the impeachment process.”
State House, Senate, Republican lawmakers reach deal to draft ‘power grab’ proposal
According to a statement received by the newspaper, Republican members of the state House and Senate, who also met at the state Capitol on Feb. 22, reached an agreement to immediately draft a proposal that would strip Cuomo of his emergency powers in the outbreak.
House Minority Leader Will Barclay (R-Texas) and Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R-Texas) said Republicans have made fourteen efforts in the past few months to remove Cuomo’s emergency response authority in the outbreak, but have been blocked by Democrats in both chambers.
“While I’m glad my majority colleagues were finally awakened to our warnings in recent weeks, they still acted too late, and their silence is inexcusable.” Ault said, adding that he did not believe the bipartisan committee formed the other day to impeach Cuomo had any real effect; he urged a bipartisan coalition to remove Cuomo from power immediately and called for an independent investigation of him.
For his part, Buckley said that “taking back Cuomo’s extended powers is long overdue, but better late than never.” He said, “The reality is that New York State is a Democratic Party representative, and one-party rule is not what our government should be. We’ve seen that the credibility of the governor’s office is at a point where it’s been so badly damaged that it may be beyond repair.”
“Avoiding hospital overcrowding” is “politicking”?
On March 25 of last year, Cuomo issued a gubernatorial executive order requiring the state’s nursing homes to admit patients diagnosed as COVID-19 positive, ignoring the fact that nursing homes are not equipped to handle such patients. It is widely believed that the governor’s policy put the sick and vulnerable elderly population in nursing homes at risk of the virus, resulting in over a thousand unnecessary deaths.
However, Cuomo had a rather “plausible” excuse at the time, namely that he was afraid of overflowing hospital beds. But Vivian Zayas, co-founder of VoicesForSeniors, a group whose mother died of COVID-19 at a Long Island nursing home, told the newspaper that the truth is that there was plenty of room to help elderly patients.
“He kept saying that our hospital was going to be full, and it was going to be full soon. He doesn’t mention that the Javits Center is empty; he doesn’t say that Trump sent a medical ship ……,” Zayas said. “There’s a real political issue here, and I think he just doesn’t want to make it look like Trump did a good job.”
Lester Chang, a Chinese-American Navy veteran who worked as a security guard at the Javits Center last year, helped patients get medical care and once ran for state Senate as a Republican, told the newspaper that the Javits Center was able to host 2,000 people at any given time, but last year only 300 people came at the busiest time, or 15 percent of the entire center’s capacity.
“Most of the people who came were nomads, people who didn’t have insurance.” Zheng Yongjia said. “We received two elderly patients and they got better service here than they did at home.”
Jung said that while the Javits Center does not have the capacity to host patients who have underlying conditions or are very sick with COVID-19, they can host short-term patients with COVID-19 or send out staff for the nursing home to help them.
“If the nursing home says, we have a problem, we need people, we need equipment, then that’s when the federal government can help, and we have people at the Javits Center, we don’t have a full load of patients, we have people totally out working, we can send people to the nursing home to help.” Jung said. “Cuomo should come forward and show that he made a mistake, although it can’t all be blamed on him because COVID has very limited information and we don’t know much about it now; but he covered up the information, it’s about politics and he’s afraid that President Trump will see something negative.”
In addition Jung added that the 1,000-bed federally assigned Navy medical warship Comfort, which has full surgical equipment and is capable of treating all types of patients, including those with mental illnesses, has taken in just over 200 patients to his knowledge.
Former DOJ Prosecutor: Nursing Home Investigation May Lead to Criminal Charges
A former acting attorney general for the Trump Administration‘s Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division told the Wall Street Journal that the investigation into Cuomo could lead to criminal charges against him.
The attorney, John Daukas, wrote that Cuomo’s executive order last March “led to many tragedies and unnecessary deaths” and that “his administration appears to have engaged in a deliberate cover-up that allowed federal oversight efforts to fail “.
“It is a crime to create false statements about the federal government; it is also a crime to conceal information and to obstruct government investigations.” Daukas wrote. “New York has engaged in a crime of conspiracy to defraud the United States and its agencies, and of possible obstruction of justice, among other crimes.”
Background
Last March 25, New York Governor Cuomo issued an executive order requiring nursing homes to accept newly crowned patients who are diagnosed positive; on May 10, Cuomo rescinded the executive order.
Subsequently, legislators from both sides of the aisle, including the state Senate and Assembly, as well as the federal Department of Justice, have demanded that the New York State government produce true data on nursing home deaths. where it was made clear that the number of patients brought from nursing homes to hospitals who died quickly should be counted as nursing home deaths, but the state Department of health has maintained that the number of nursing home deaths was only about 6,000.
On January 27 of this year, when the New York State Attorney General released the results of a report claiming that the New York State government had underreported the number of deaths by at least 50%, the Department of Health’s figure remained at 8,711. According to the Attorney General’s investigation, the number of deaths is at least 13,000, and if other deaths in long-term care facilities are added, the number could reach 15,000 or more.
According to a recent study released by the Empire Center for PUblic Policy, more than 1,000 residents may have died unnecessarily after the outbreak because nursing homes were forced to accept patients as a result of Cuomo’s executive order.
And the recent focus on nursing homes is due to an exclusive report in the New York Post on Feb. 11. The story revealed that Melissa DeRosa, the governor’s secretary, told fellow state Democrats at an internal meeting that the state had deliberately hidden the number of nursing home deaths last year. The incident sparked condemnation of Cuomo by Democratic and Republican lawmakers of both parties and a new series of investigations.
To date, Cuomo has denied all of these allegations and refused to apologize.
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