New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants all of the state’s county hospitals to open their doors to COVID-19 patients from downstate hot zones. That’s not going over well with upstate counties already facing stretched resources.
“When I say I have 75,000 beds, that’s a statewide number. That means those beds have to be available to the people of New York City or Nassau [on Long Island.] Even if those beds are up in Albany,” Cuomo, a Democrat, said at his daily briefing on Tuesday.
“We have New York City hospitals, then we have Long Island hospitals, and then we have Westchester hospitals, and then we have upstate hospitals — that has to go. We are one healthcare system,” said Cuomo, 62. “Worst step, you’re overcapacity in all New York City hospitals, you’ve redistributed the load, you are still overcapacity, then send people to the upstate hospitals.”
More than 67,000 cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed in New York state since Tuesday morning, with most being in the New York City area. Cuomo’s push to spread patient load is generating pushback, part of concerns nationally from officials in more rural areas that virus-infected patients from big cities could spread their sicknesses to local populations.
That’s the case with Fulton County, located about 50 miles northwest of Albany, which has confirmed only one COVID-19 case.
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“I’m not a Doctor, just a Doctor’s son, but even I know that’s a ridiculous idea jeopardizing everyone and their families upstate, ” wrote county Sheriff Richard Giardino on Facebook.
“The heaviest concentration of CV19 patients are in the Metropolitan and heavier populated areas, not only in NYS but around the Country,” Giardino wrote. “Common sense says limit spreading contagious people around to areas with less cases.”
Orange County Executive Steve Neuhaus told the Washington Examiner his jurisdiction is facing a shortage of supplies as the coronavirus cases are going up in his region each day.
“We’re at capacity with our hospitals, and it’s at the point where sooner or later these hospitals, just like they did in Italy, are going to have to take whose going to get a ventilator or not,” Neuhaus said. “I just don’t have the beds for anybody else.”
Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin, who issued a county health order that demands any out-of-county visitor to self-quarantine for 14 days, says Cuomo does not care about the needs of other counties in the state other than the regions where his Democratic political base lives.
“He’s making my point, he’s talking about New York City, Rockland, Suffolk, Westchester, Nassau. And it spreads out from there. Yes, exactly, governor. So how do you talk about stopping the spread, stay home, when you won’t do this? And then he says, ‘I’m working with the facts and the science,’” Mclaughlin told the Washington Examiner.
