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Several different reports have been released at this point regarding New York State’s response to COVID-19, particularly in nursing homes.
This week, the New York State Bar Association added another.
A task force worked for about a year, with the goal of removing politics from the process and providing answers to families who have lost loved ones.
“To try to get a glimpse of what happened, why there were so many deaths, why they couldn’t communicate with their loved ones and why we had such a bad result at the start of the crisis COVID, “Task Force member John Dalli said.
A lawyer, Dalli specializes in personal injury and medical malpractice litigation. He said one of the main findings of the more than 200-page report was the governor’s directive of March 25, 2020 requiring nursing homes to admit COVID-19 patients, that they still test positive and that this be contributed to the death toll in these establishments and if keeping it in place for about six weeks was a mistake.
“It led to a disaster,” said Dalli. “They should have realized it within two weeks. They didn’t. It went on too long and there’s no doubt in my mind that it has. resulted in additional deaths which certainly contributed to that number of over 15,000. “
But Dalli said there was a shared blame between the governor, the health ministry and nursing home operators who should have known the directive did not override the public health law preventing them from admitting patients for whom they did not have the capacity to provide adequate care. .
“Basically, if they want to take the money to take care of them, they make a promise that they can do it right and keep them safe and the governor and the health ministry were operating under that assumption when they issued the March 25 directive, Dalli said.
At the same time, the report points out that the state did not use federal government resources like beds at the USS Comfort and the Javits Center that could have been used for nursing home patients with COVID. -19.
He also concludes that the state made another key error.
“I think the immunity he gave nursing home owners from civil liability and lawsuits, which luckily was revoked in April of this year, was certainly a mistake because it deterred home owners from care to have the right staff and provide the right care, ”says Dalli.
Despite these findings, Dalli said any political talking point that attributes the majority of nursing home deaths to the governor or the state is just that and is unfounded in reality.
He said the state legislature made progress this year on patient care at facilities that were lacking long before the pandemic, but the report recommends more transparency on how they spend the money. public money.
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