Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik is calling for an independent investigation into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus following news that the state was purposely underreporting death counts in nursing homes.
The New York Department of Health admitted last week to omitting nursing home deaths and confirmed it was disclosing nursing home deaths regardless of whether the patient died there or in a hospital until around April 28. But the department made a change around May 3 and now only reports deaths if the patient died while physically present at a facility.
“New York has mismanaged how we have approached and how we’ve protected our seniors in our nursing homes,” Stefanik said this week. “We knew, going into this, that our most vulnerable are our seniors and particularly in those assisted living facilities, whether they’re senior living facilities or nursing homes.”
“New York, when compared to other states, took a number of negative actions that cost over 5,000 lives,” she added. “They also didn’t fully tell the public how many seniors’ deaths there were coming from nursing homes. So, that reporting data, they didn’t count the hospital deaths when there was a positive case that was transmitted because of the senior nursing home.”
Stefanik said she doesn’t believe a fair investigation can be conducted by state Attorney General Letitia James.
“I’ve heard from families who are still grieving for loss of their loved ones and they deserve answers. And it’s not just Republicans who are calling for this independent investigation. It’s Democrats as well. It cannot be conducted by New York’s attorney general either. It needs to be an independent investigation,” Stefanik continued. “I’m calling for the Department of HHS to conduct this independent investigation, but I think it needs to come from the federal government.”
Cuomo has been widely criticized for not protecting nursing home residents in his state and mandating that nursing homes accept coronavirus patients.
The vast majority of coronavirus deaths in New York City have been people 75 years of age or older.
New York leads the nation with over 5,000 nursing home deaths.
