People Died Because Cuomo Put Coronavirus Patients in Nursing Homes

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It’s unbelievable that happened. I remember reading similar earlier and thinking there is fewer ways to increase infection rates and deaths than placing COVID infected individuals with the most vulnerable, the elderly in nursing homes. I hope that there is an investigation of what happened in New York.

There apparently is another locations where this is occurring. I’ve read that in the UK similar is happening. It has some physicians up in arms, understandably.


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Unfortunately, it seems that COVID-19 has infected everyone involved in healthcare management and turned their brains into useless mush.

Lockdown has two main purposes. One, to limit the spread of the virus. Two, and most important, to protect the elderly and infirm from infection – as these are the people most likely to become very ill, end up in hospital, and often die. [In my view, if we had any sense, we would lockdown/protect the elderly, and let everyone else get on with their lives].

However, the hospitals themselves have another policy. Which is to discharge the elderly unwell patients with COVID directly back into the community, and care homes. Where they can spread the virus widely amongst the most vulnerable.

This, believe it or not, is NHS policy. Still.

Yes, you did just read that. COVID-19 patients, even those with symptoms, are still to be discharged back home, or into care homes – unless unwell enough to require hospital care e.g. oxygen, fluids and suchlike. If this is not national policy, then the managers are telling me lies.

In fact, it does seem to be policy, although the guidance from the UK Government is virtually incomprehensible1. I have read it a few times and I fail to fully understand it – or partially understand it. I tried reading it upside down, and it made just about as much sense.

I wrote about this situation in my last blog, as the impact of COVID of care homes was becoming apparent – even to politicians. I thought that someone, somewhere, might have realised the policy of flinging COVID positive patients – or patients who may have COVID – out of hospital, and into care homes, might prove a complete and utter disaster…
 
qui_est_ce said:
This might be one reason there are so many COVID infections in NY.
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And it could be coupled with the other reason (Trumps downplaying the danger and squandering more than a month before putting a plan in place).
 
Under ordinary circumstances, transferring patients from hospitals to skilled nursing facilities is routine. This works well for non-infectious diseases and no one bats an eye.

Unfortunately, these are not ordinary circumstances. This is an infectious disease we’re dealing with. We have known nationwide since the nursing home fiasco at Kirkland, WA in late January just how dangerously infective Covid-19 is for long term care facility populations. To put Covid-19 patients in there is throwing gas on the fire and anyone with common sense can see that. But the authorities apparently did not give serious thought to segregating Covid-19 patients in their own long term care facilities as other states have done.

Cuomo’s Department of Public Health put out their order on March 25 for this to happen. NY wasn’t the only one to do it. NJ did it and so did CA around the same time. Only CA has relaxed its policy ever so slightly; I’ve read both versions, the order from last month and the superseding order this week, and it’s a distinction without a difference.

So Cuomo shifts the blame onto the nursing homes themselves. This is really disingenuous.

Normally, there is the saying that one shouldn’t ascribe to malice what can easily be explained by stupidity or incompetence. But this is so lacking in common sense as to be moronic, I wonder if evil is inspiring such a level of stupidity.
 
Remember that God didn’t put those COVID patients in nursing homes, Cuomo did.
 
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If anyone acted promptly, it was Trump.
But the fault is not with Cuomo or any of the others. They did their best with the information they had.
They lacked information precisely because of the totalitarian socialist regime in China.
 
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Nice try but just crickets heard from Trump after the China travel restrictions except for his daily claims that everything was under control. :roll_eyes:
 
Here is another example that neither “side” of the political aisle made perfectly good choices.

Here’s the thing though.
The nursing home industry is an understaffed mess and has been for decades.
We warehouse our elderly and disabled there, and despite it being a highly regulated care setting, the vast majority of homes operate on the edge of disaster.
They’re simply not staffed and equipped to care for isolation patients (especially when they have dementia and won’t stay put in their rooms).

At the same time, you have patients recovering from Covid19 who have to go somewhere.

But hey, pleas for adequate staffing have been ignored for decades, so it’s not like anybody’s gonna listen now.
 
Does anyone really think Cuomo or anyone else responsible for this irresponsible practice will be held accountable? Don’t count on it.
 
Zzyzx_Road said:
So Cuomo shifts the blame onto the nursing homes themselves. This is really disingenuous.
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There went any slack or saving grace one would give him.

What is really disturbing is no one in the Health Dept stopped it.
 
Not trying to defend Cuomo or hospitals in general but what’s the purpose of nursing homes anyway?
 
To care for those elderly people whose families are unable to care for them, either because they are working or because the amount of care required is more than they can handle, or both.

And some nursing homes provide specialized care for dementia patients, for whom family care can be particularly difficult.

Additionally, nursing homes provide more people with whom the patients can interact when they might be quite isolated if they were on their own or in a relative’s home.
 
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@CradleRC58

The worst of it is that the facilities set up to care for just this type of patient went basically unused…

Sickening.
 
Trump is to blame but he is not the ONLY one to blame. I hadn’t heard about this with regard to Cuomo, but surely Mayor de Blasio of NYC was slow to act in protecting New Yorkers from the virus, even being one of the last mayors to close the city public schools, and only due to harsh criticism. Let’s be critical of the federal government, but also many states and cities were slow to respond. Some are, in my view, now acting too fast to re-open. I’m not doubting the sincerity of ANYONE, including Trump, but I am doubting their judgment.

Further, Trump has a point in blaming the States for their lack of preparation in supplies. Of course, money is one of the reasons; but it almost seems that states had no idea such a disaster might even happen. And how about the hospitals and THEIR lack of beds, masks, gowns, ventilators and other supplies? What were they thinking?

I know it’s easy to be a Monday-morning quarterback. And we should concentrate on what we do NOW to end this pandemic rather than casting blame on everyone. There is a time and place for the blame game.
 
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Some nursing homes are charities though, the people have nowhere else to go imho.
 
It’s always better, whenever possible, to keep elderly people in their own homes. That’s why I became a home health aide a few years back. Nursing homes often provide substandard care, and their staff can be neglectful and/or abusive. Moreover, many nursing home patients are lonely because their families and friends rarely or never come to visit them. They are simply warehoused there, and forgotten.
 
Well, they charge like $5000 a month. If assets are minimal, Medicaid pays for their stay.

If hospitalized, Medicare pays for it.
 
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