{"id":178490,"date":"2021-02-15T03:19:22","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T00:19:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/ny-laws-go-too-easy-on-nursing-homes-cuomo-aides-admit\/"},"modified":"2021-02-15T03:19:22","modified_gmt":"2021-02-15T00:19:22","slug":"ny-laws-go-too-easy-on-nursing-homes-cuomo-aides-admit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/ny-laws-go-too-easy-on-nursing-homes-cuomo-aides-admit\/","title":{"rendered":"#NY laws go too easy on nursing homes, Cuomo aides admit"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#NY laws go too easy on nursing homes, Cuomo aides admit<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

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No New York nursing homes have lost their licenses yet despite widespread COVID-19 deaths at the facilities, aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said \u2014 griping that state laws are too soft and their hands are tied.<\/p>\n

Members of Cuomo\u2019s team made the remarks during the now-infamous meeting last week with Democratic lawmakers in which top aide Melissa DeRosa admitted that state officials withheld damning data showing the extent of the coronavirus death toll in nursing homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d said DeRosa during the behind-closed-doors virtual meeting, audio of which was reviewed by The Post.<\/p>\n

DeRosa was responding to a call from state Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) \u2014 whose uncle is presumed to have died of the coronavirus in a nursing home \u2014 to hold \u201cthe bad actors accountable\u201d and bring \u201cretroactive justice\u201d against facilities that mixed COVID-positive residents with others, allowing the virus to spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s lives, I think that we all share the same goal, which is to hold them accountable,\u201d said DeRosa.<\/p>\n

Pressed by state Sen. James Skoufis (D-Orange) on what steps the state actually has taken to hold accountable homes that aren\u2019t up to snuff, Beth Garvey, Cuomo\u2019s counsel, conceded that there wasn\u2019t much to report.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has not happ<\/a>ened,\u201d said Garvey, asked whether the state has revoked the licenses of nursing homes, as Cuomo has threatened it would for serious violations. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have significant due process, obviously, for those operators that we have to go through and hearings. So those are still ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have at this juncture, you know, any receivers appointed right now,\u201d continued Garvey, asked if any facilities had been placed in receivership.<\/p>\n

The facilities also haven\u2019t been hit particularly hard in the pocketbook.<\/p>\n

Between the start of the pandemic and Feb. 4, the state Department of Health has conducted 2,284 infection control inspections in nursing homes.<\/p>\n

But the audits have resulted in just 170 violations being issued, which Skoufis said \u201cseems low given sort of the sort of knowledge that we\u2019re all operating with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Beth
Beth Garvey, Gov Cuomo\u2019s counsel.<\/figcaption>
Taidgh Barron\/NY Post<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Those 170 violations have resulted, however, in just $1.3 million in fines, with state fines capped at $10,000 a piece.<\/p>\n

\u201cTen thousand dollars is really the maximum that we can assess for a violation, even a willful violation of a public health law,\u201d said Garvey.<\/p>\n

Skoufis noted, however, that $1.3 million over 170 violations shakes out to an average of about $7,650 per infraction, a sum he said \u201camounts to a slap on the wrist.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeRosa conceded the need to step up enforcement, but questioned the extent to which it was possible under existing state law.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that that\u2019s something we should revisit, I think then we should be increasing the penalties,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not suggesting we shouldn\u2019t have due process. But if there is a way that we can change the law where we can expedite some of this, we should do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Richard Mollot, head of the nursing home residents\u2019 advocacy group Long Term Care Community Coalition, said that Cuomo\u2019s aides correctly identified an issue with the status quo \u2014 but that they don\u2019t need to punt the problem to legislators.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor and Department of Health do not need to wait for the legislature,\u201d said Mollot. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey can provide immedia<\/a>te relief to residents and families by improving enforcement of minimum standards, releasing guidance to allow every resident to designate a visitor, and opening communications with resident advocates.\u201d<\/p>\n

James Clyne, executive director of nursing home advocacy group Leading Age NY, said however that more regulation wasn\u2019t the answer.<\/p>\n

\u201cOther than nuclear plants, there is no one who is more regulated than nursing homes,\u201d said Clyne. \u201cMore penalties is not the solution. The solution is working with nursing homes to give us the tools we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cuomo spokesman\u00a0Rich Azzopardi responded on Sunday: \u201cLegislators seemed to agree with us that the fines were too low and new actions are needed to further\u00a0protect patients in these facilities and\u00a0there was a commitment further discuss these vital changes.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#NY laws go too easy on nursing homes, Cuomo aides admit” No New York nursing homes have lost their licenses yet despite widespread COVID-19 deaths at the facilities, aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently said \u2014 griping that state laws are too soft and their hands are tied. Members of Cuomo\u2019s team made the remarks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":178491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/02\/melissa-derosa-3.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[93270,70430,1545,70344,93349,42160],"class_list":["post-178490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-2-14-21","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-melissa-derosa","tag-nursing-homes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}