June 24, 2020
Congressman Tom Reed is now putting public pressure Governor Andrew Cuomo. Reed says, the governor yesterday on MSNBC, defended the executive order issued about putting Covid patients into nursing homes. This has Reed concerned that if Covid 19 returns in September, which Reed has warned that it might, that the governor will once again send Covid patients into nursing homes. “We need to be setting the plans in black and white today that’s why we’re already taking the initiative and doing the work necessary to get prepared for September, for our region,” Reed stated this morning, during his Zoom Conference press conference.
One reporter on the Zoom Conference, said that he (the reporter) did not see/hear the governor’s appearance on MSNBC. That reporter asked Reed, “what makes you think he’ll do this again if there is a spike this fall?” Reed answered: “He (Cuomo) doubled down on the Today Show, saying it was the right call to issue the order, to have the (Covid) positive seniors, parents and grandparents, ordered to be received by the nursing homes. It was very clear, in his statement, he doubled down on it, and for him to think that it was correct in that situation, leads me to believe that he is not going to reconsider doing it in September, doing it in September, if the same crisis develops,” Reed said. “So I am just making sure that my adamant disagreement with that type of approach to this nursing home crisis, is not the policy that we follow in New York.”
Wlea has sent an email to the governor’s press office, asking for a response to what Reed said. If the governor’s office responds, we’ll post it right away. Also, as the governor is scheduled to speak at 11:30am today, we’ll see if Gov. Cuomo responds during his briefing today.
From Governor Cuomo’s Senior Advisor Rich Azzopardi:
“Reed’s a do-nothing congressman hoping to lie his way into gubinatorial run, all while trying to do favors for the industry for which he used to earn a living by being their debt collector. Once again, S10 N.Y.C.R.R. Section 415.26 states that a nursing home shall accept & retain only those residents for whom it can provide adequate care – that’s always been operative in New York, and is consistent with every federal guideline issued – and still in effect — no matter what they say now. More than a dozen other states adopted the same policies off the same guidelines — and yet the Washington republicans are hell-bent on politically targeting six Democratic states in an election year for them. No one’s dumb enough to fall for it.”
CMS’s guidance issued March 13th clearly stating that patients should admit any individuals that they would normally admit to the facility, including individuals from hospitals where a case of COVID1- was/is present.
A pathetic attempt to dismiss this March 13th guidance by quoting an after-the fact Fox News interview of Trump administration official Seema Verma, CMS Administrator, on May 27 – more than two months after her written guidance – insisting that hospitals should not have discharged patients to nursing homes. If this was her position, why didn’t she clarify her own guidance two months earlier when her agency, charged with oversight, was notified of actions taken by individual states. In the same interview Verma admits, “yes a nursing home will have COVID-positive people.”
Further, on March 23, the Centers for Disease Control (the “CDC”) issued guidance that “clarified that patients with COVID-19 may be sent home or to a nursing home, preferably one with experience treating COVID-19 patients or with a COVID-19 wing. This was consistent with the March 13 CMS guidance.
On March 25, the New York State Department of Health sent an advisory to Nursing Home Administrators, Directors of Nursing, and Hospital Discharge Planners and said: “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the NH solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.” This was consistent with both the March 13 CMS guidance and the March 23 CDC guidance — a patient should not be discriminated against SOLELY because they had covid — however, New York State Law specifically outlaws nursing homes from accepting patients they cannot care for.
