WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Democrat attorneys general in five states are being asked to look into the actions of their governors, as U.S. House Republicans are questioning why nursing homes were forced to take in individuals with coronavirus.
Five members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus have issued letters to five AGs: New York’s Letitia James, Michigan’s Dana Nessel, California’s Xavier Becerra, New Jersey’s Gurbir Grewal and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro.
If those AGs are investigating the actions of nursing homes in the weeks after the COVID-19 outbreak, they should be looking at their governors, too.
“(The subcommittee) wrote Governor Wolf seeking information regarding his decision to mandate nursing homes and long-term cares facilities admit untested and contagious COVID-19 patients from hospitals,” the subcommittee members wrote to Pennsylvania’s Shapiro.
“This decision likely contributed to the thousands of elderly deaths in Pennsylvania.”
Data indicates close to 4,500 nursing home deaths occurred in Pennsylvania – nearly 70% of all COVID-19 deaths in the state and 3% of its nursing home population, the letter to Shapiro says.
Shapiro is urged to probe these topics in his nursing home investigation:
-The process of all state-issued guidance and executive orders regarding hospital discharges to nursing homes and other assisted living facilities;
-An analysis of those guidance and orders that adversely affected nursing homes’ efforts to contain an outbreak; and
-Data collection practices regarding the number of infected patients who were admitted or readmitted to nursing homes this year.
Subcommittee members signing the letters were Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Jim Jordan of Ohio, Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri, Jackie Walorski of Indiana and Mark Green of Tennessee. Eight other members of Congress signed as well.
The other letters follow the same theme, asking for information on the illnesses caused by the introduction of coronavirus patients into nursing homes.
For instance, in March, the New York Department of Health issued a directive that said “no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the (nursing home) solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”
It also said nursing homes “are prohibited from requiring a hospitalized resident who is determined medically stable to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or re-admission.”
“For clarity,” the House members wrote, “this advisory mandated nursing homes accept known COVID-19 positive patients and, further, mandated that nursing homes not even test patients for COVID-19 prior to admission.”