No NY Nursing Home Lost License During Pandemic

No nursing home in New York lost their state license to continue operating during the coronavirus pandemic– not even in facilities that saw numerous deaths from the virus.

Even members of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s inner circle have been frustrated by the pass nursing homes have gotten.

“I think a lot of these nursing homes, frankly, retrospectively, even prior to COVID have been getting away with a lot for a lot of years,” said aide Melissa DeRosa in a meeting record obtained by the New York Post.

“I think that if there is any evidence that anyone was willful, or anyone was negligent in a way that goes beyond the normal course that costs people’s lives, I think that we all share the same goal, which is to hold them accountable,” she continued.

But no nursing home has has its license revoked by the state, as Cuomo had warned. And there have been limit financial consequences for failures.

Of the 2,284 infection control inspections undertaken by the state Health Department, only 170 reported infractions resulted in fines, up to a paltry sum of $10,000.

Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a scathing report indicating the Cuomo administration deliberately covered up how deadly nursing homes were during the early months of the pandemic.

Assemblyman Ron Kim, D-Queens, whose uncle died in a nursing home of the coronavirus, has called for a nonpartisan committee to “hold those who pushed for legal corporate immunity and decided to hide the true nursing home deaths for months” responsible.

He decried the nursing home system as a “business model soaked in blood.”

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smarcus@hamodia.com