Cuomo Won't Sign Budget Without Nursing Home Reform

LONG ISLAND, NY — In the face of the escalating nursing home controversy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo once again discussed the issue Friday and said he won't sign the upcoming budget without sweeping nursing home reforms.

On Monday, Cuomo spoke out publicly for the first time on renewed political furor over whether the state covered up nursing home deaths.

Last week, news broke that Melissa DeRosa told Democratic lawmakers during a video call that the state denied a legislative request for coronavirus-related nursing home death numbers amid fears the Trump administration would use them as a "giant political football," according to a story first reported in the New York Post.

DeRosa said "basically, we froze" in releasing nursing home deaths as Trump's Department of Justice requested information, the Post report states.

On Friday, Cuomo said nursing home reform is critical, including the addition of "surge" staff as a backup and faster staff testing. Nursing homes must have stockpiles of personal protective equipment and isolation rooms.

Cuomo also called for regulation on how much profit a private nursing home can make, with staff salary caps. "These are not designed to be money-making machines," he said.

Cuomo said he was proposing the nursing home reform agenda in the 30-day amended budget Friday and he would not sign the budget without those changes.

Addressing the nursing home situation, Cuomo said that all information provided was accurate and the total number of deaths between hospital deaths and nursing home deaths was reported.

Cuomo also said one of his "errors" was his lack of "aggessiveness" in speaking out on what he called rumors and lies. He once again discussed the void that he has said was created by not providing information to the public and the press expeditiously enough.

Cuomo also said that the "lies and politics" led to confusion among families who had lost loved ones, something he called cruel. "You have no right to lie and hurt people," he said. "I'm going to take on the lies and unscrupulous actors especially when it hurts families."

New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker also spoke about the timeline regarding nursing homes, including a contentious March 25 memo that many have said sent COVID-19 patients back into nursing homes, leading to the death of scores of residents.

Earlier this week, Cuomo discussed what he called "much distortion" around a March 25 memo. Cuomo said on March 13, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and on March 23, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put out guidance regarding sending people with COVID back into nursing homes. New York State, along with 12 other states, followed that guidance, which was based on reasoning including that those residents were not contagious; seniors should not remain in hospitals longer than necessary; and patients were sent back to nursing homes only if those nursing homes could provide proper care, by law, Cuomo said.

At the time, hospital capacity was a chief concern, he added.

Cuomo also said of 613 nursing homes in New York State, 365 received a person from a hospital; 98 percent of those facilities already had reports of COVID, he said, adding that nursing home resident deaths have been the same before and after the March 25 memo.

And on Friday, Zucker also discussed the memo. He said as a doctor, he reviews every decision after the fact, but decisions can only be made with the facts available at the time. Both Zucker and Cuomo said they stood by the decisions they made in March, with concerns about hospital capacity escalating and projections indicating that New York hospitals, with only 50,000 beds and 30,000 downstate available statewide, could be faced with the potential of 140,000 patients needing treatment.

Zucker said hospitalization rates were growing at a "staggering pace, doubling every three days. We were running out of ICU capacity."

From March 25 to May 10, 84,474 New Yorkers were hospitalized with Covid-19, Zucker said. "Based on the projections, tens of thousands would have died."

Given the facts at the time, Zucker said the goal was to balance patient load to protect the hospital system from collapse and people from dying.

"We made the right public health decisions at the time and faced with the same facts, we would make the same decisions again"

Also, he said, the March 25 memo protected nursing home patients who were in the hospital and ready for release; keeping them in the hospital may have left them exposed to infection. Those patients were not contagious and were to be placed in cohorts when back in their nursing homes, he said.

Both Cuomo and Zucker said it was against the law for nursing homes to take back Covid-19 patients they were unable to adequately care for. Both also said the virus was brought into nursing homes by staff, many of whom were asymptomatic. And, in cases where patients were brought to nursing homes, 98 percent of those facilities already had Covid-19 cases, both said. The 132 nursing homes that did not take Covid-19 hospital patients also had reports of coronavirus fatalities, Zucker said.

"March 25 was not a driver," Zucker said.

Even now, with staff tested twice weekly and no one admitted back without a negative test, cases are still reported at nursing homes, Zucker said.

"We made the right public health decisions at the time and faced with the same facts, we would make the same decisions again," Zucker said.

"The decisions were right," Cuomo agreed.

However, discussing all that transpired, Cuomo said, "I take responsibility for it all, period."

When Cuomo was asked how he would respond to some who believe that he "lied to them and wonder if they can trust him still" Cuomo said to look to the facts.

New York went from the highest rate of infection to the lowest, he said.