Sunday, March 21, 2021

21 March 2021: Opinion - No Justice for Michigan's COVID Nursing Home Victims

Jacques: In Michigan, no justice for nursing home victims

The Detroit News' Ingrid Jacques faults the state's Democratic attorney general, Dana Nessel, for refusing to investigate Michigan's COVID nursing home deaths in this opinion piece.

Michigan's Democratic attorney general is refusing to look into COVID-19 deaths at nursing homes at the request of a group of Republican state senators.

This is an injustice to thousands of families who have unanswered questions about how their relatives were treated and how they died. More than 5,500 individuals fell victim to COVID in these homes — as far as we know....

More than a third of the state's COVID deaths have taken place in long-term facilities, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's emergency orders dictated how they were to handle the virus. Michigan was one of only five states to instruct elder care centers to take in COVID patients from hospitals, and the state was one of the last to change the misguided policy.

The Health Department refuses to turn over raw data related to these deaths, which has prompted a lawsuit from the Mackinac Center.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer's pandemic policies for nursing homes in Michigan deserve special scrutiny. Here is background for Michigan's COVID nursing home deaths situation:

The entry for 15 March 2021 covers Michigan Attorney General's decision to deny an investigation into the effect of Governor Whitmer's COVID nursing home policies in contributing to the deaths of nursing home residents.

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