New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defended his decision to require nursing homes to readmit residents with the coronavirus during the early days of the pandemic in the state.
Cuomo has been widely criticized for issuing a mandate in March that said that nursing homes could not discriminate against residents who tested positive for COVID-19, meaning that some ill residents were readmitted to facilities where the virus spread to high-risk, elderly patients. During a press conference on Sunday, the governor noted that the policy had slightly changed but stood by his original decision.
“No, first of all, if you look at the facts, which is always fun, you can test your hypothesis on what’s flawed. Look at how many residents we have in nursing homes, look at the percentage of our deaths in our nursing homes vis-a-vie other states, we’re down by like number 34,” he said. “So, whatever we’re doing has worked on the facts.”
“Second, at one time, hospital beds were precious. When we started this, remember, the whole question was will you have enough hospital beds? We were in a scramble to provide more hospital beds,” he added, “The last thing you would be doing would be gratuitously saying we’re going to keep a person in a hospital bed who doesn’t need a hospital bed who could be at another facility. You would never do that. It would be reckless. It would be negligent.”
Cuomo said that the state had flipped its mandate and now forbids hospitals from discharging coronavirus patients to nursing homes. He maintained that nursing homes could have turned away patients who were sent back from hospitals if they notified the state that they did not have the proper capacity to care for the infected resident.
Many families have expressed frustration that residents with COVID-19 were returned from hospitals and triggered outbreaks that swept through entire nursing homes. Chris Laxton, executive director of the Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine, told ABC News that many nursing homes were not even told if a patient had the virus when they were readmitted to the facility.
“A number of nursing homes have felt constrained by the order and admitted hospital discharged patients without knowing what their COVID status was,” said Laxton. “This order made an already difficult situation almost impossible.”
Cuomo also announced on Sunday that nursing home employees were now required to be tested for COVID-19 twice per week. Hospitals that do not test employees will risk having their licenses revoked.
Nearly 1 in 5 coronavirus victims who died in nursing homes died in a facility in New York state.
