For Immediate Release April 24, 2020 Contact: Shaun Marie 518-356-7882 www.cpnys.org @cpnys STATEMENT BY STATE CHAIRMAN GERARD KASSAR ON THE CONTINUING CORONAVIRUS CRISIS IN NEW YORK CITY NURSING HOMES.
Brooklyn, NY – Publish reports on Coronavirus patients admitted to Queens nursing home – with body bags, is both shocking and heartbreaking. Shocking to think that this happened at the direction of Governor Andrew Cuomo Health Department that handed down a March 25 directive that bars nursing homes from refusing to admit “medically stable’ coronavirus patients. Heartbreaking because we will never know how many of the 30 residents who perished after the nursing home was forced to admit two patients with CONVID-19 to the previously free of the deadly disease.
Governor Cuomo appeared to deflect the state’s role in the unusual high number of deaths in nursing homes during his presser on Thursday when he noted it wasn’t the state’s job to protect patients in nursing homes, nursing homes have strict rules to protect their patients; this article paints a very different picture.
Yesterday, Governor Cuomo called for the state and the state attorney general to investigate the COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes. An unbiased investigation is not possible when political functionaries are leading an investigation of this magnitude; the state is not in a position to investigate itself.
The federal government should impanel an independent commission to look into the allegations.
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