Calls to protect the elderly went unheeded by Democratic Governors Cuomo, Whitmer, Wolf, and Newsom, according to bombshell reports scarcely discussed by broadcast media outlets.
These Democratic Party governors not only failed to prioritize the safety of vulnerable people in their state nursing homes, they appear to have willfully endangered those most at risk by forcing nursing homes to admit coronavirus patients.
Numerous local reports prove the theme across the Democrat-run states of New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California.
“Gov. Cuomo admits he was wrong to order nursing homes to accept coronavirus patients,” read the headline of the New York Post.
Which raises the obvious question – why was Gov. Cuomo allowing sick patients into confined facilities all along?
“That’s a good question, I don’t know,” the governor said when asked in mid-April.
AARP warned New York weeks ago
Nursing Homes Balk at COVID Patient Transfers From Hospitalshttps://t.co/zRFOhvNCsi
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) May 11, 2020
A few weeks later, New York’s policy was changed, but not before over 5,000 nursing home dwellers died on Cuomo’s watch. That’s a quarter of the state’s deaths.
Nursing homes themselves were calling for more testing and personal protective equipment at the time, to protect themselves and patients.
Mark Parkinson, President & CEO of the American Health Care Association (AHCA) and Dr. David Gifford, Chief Medical Officer for AHCA issued the following statement addressing state orders directing nursing homes to accept all hospital patients in late March:
“Multiple states are considering adopting an order similar to what was issued in New York that requires every nursing home to admit hospital patients who have not been tested for COVID-19 and to admit patients who have tested positive. This approach will introduce the highly contagious virus into more nursing homes. There will be more hospitalizations for nursing home residents who need ventilator care and ultimately, a higher number of deaths. Issuing such an order is a mistake and there is a better solution.”
The two went on to spell out their preferred plan: to establish segregated nursing homes for coronavirus patients. They called the Democratic governors’ plan a “recipe for disaster”.
USA Today was one of the only major outlets that bothered to cover the matter in early May. Their headline on May 2nd read: “States ordered nursing homes to take COVID-19 residents. Thousands died.”
The national outlet noted: “In Pennsylvania, about 65% of coronavirus deaths were nursing home residents, and New Jersey had 3,200 residents of long-term care homes die due to complications from the virus, about 40% of the statewide total”.
“The whole thing has just been handled awfully… by everybody in regard to nursing homes,” said Kathleen Cole, whose 89-year-old mother Dolores McGoldrick died on April 17 after contracting the virus at Ferncliff Nursing Home in Rhinebeck, New York.
“It’s like a slaughterhouse at these places,” she continued.
In Pennsylvania, Governor Tom Wolfe (D) approved nursing homes’ mandatory acceptance of previous virus patients from hospitals.
In that state, the USA Today network reported: “about 65% of coronavirus deaths were nursing-home residents, and in counties in the hardest hit southeastern part of the state, long-term care residents account for as much as 80% of county deaths.”
In New Jersey, “3,200 residents of long-term care homes die due to complications from the virus; about 40% of the statewide total.”
And in Gavin Newsom’s California, the Los Angeles Times reported on April 1st that “California regulators have told skilled nursing facility operators that they must accept patients even if they have the disease.”
Back then, Patricia McGinnis of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform said: “Sacrificing the lives of beloved nursing home residents is beyond unconscionable.”
“California’s directive is nothing less than a death sentence for countless residents. The state should instead look to alternative locations such as hotels and conference centers as much safer places to send COVID-19 patients for care,” McGinnis said.
And on April 20th, Dr. Michael Wasserman of the California Association of Long Term Care Medicine told NPR: “If you push folks out of the hospitals to make space and you push them into nursing homes a couple weeks later… for every one of those you send to the nursing home, you may get 20 back in the hospital.”
Michigan’s Whitmer scarcely did better.
“Continued hospitalization until residents’ test negative will overwhelm the healthcare system and should be avoided,” the Michigan documents stated. Which meant patients were sent back to nursing homes.
But none of these Democratic governors have been quizzed on their behaviors and decisions which have directly and demonstrably led to unnecessary deaths.
Instead, the broadcast media especially has focused on broad, national narratives, often pointing their fingers at President Trump while also bizarrely asserting that the President does not have jurisdiction over the states.
Corby King and Vinnie Ungro contributed to this report.
