11 May 2021: NY DOH "Work Now, Grieve Later" Directive to Group Home Workers

The report covers a story closely related to Governor Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths scandals. It involves policies that applied to New York group homes for the developmentally disabled, which mirror the policies imposed on New York's nursing homes, including its own version of the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive.

In this case, group home workers were ordered by New York's Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) to "work now and grieve later" with only an option to file a union grievance after the fact if they objected. Or else face punishment, as the following excerpt makes clear:

Similar to its nursing homes, New York had a policy of co-mingling healthy and infected residents in its developmentally disabled group home system, resulting in the deaths of 36 workers and infections of 11,639 as of May 5. Numerous employees told the Washington Examiner that they lived with babies or elderly people and were terrified of working in such conditions.

“All refusals to follow a directive to float to another residence and or be mandated, will be considered an act of insubordination, which will result in administrative follow up actions,” wrote senior manager Raymond Bowman in a Nov. 3, 2020 email to midlevel managers at the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. He invited workers to file a grievance with their union later, if appropriate.

That practice appears to have been in effect throughout the pandemic:

Workers who staffed healthy homes were frequently transferred, or “floated," to infectious homes when they arrived for a shift — and without warning. The transfers were necessary to backfill severe staffing shortages, usually in homes with a COVID-positive resident. Early in the pandemic, the workers were told of the transfers before a shift, but the policy was changed when huge numbers of employees started calling in sick when COVID-19 houses started popping up.

Workers would inadvertently spread the virus as they floated throughout the state but were not routinely tested for COVID-19. More than 575 residents died of COVID, and 7,104 have been infected.

At least one group home worker has indicated the policy contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among group home residents and workers.

One worker, who asked to remain anonymous, said he worked in COVID-infected homes and caught the disease.

“A few of the staff with a lot of rotations requested time off to not infect us, and they were refused,” he said. “They weren’t floating just from this particular house. They were floating from 25 houses. And they wouldn’t give me time off to make sure I didn’t catch COVID from them. Then several residents got COVID.”

Residents were locked down during the pandemic and could not have caught COVID-19 from an outside location.

The employee said OPWDD would not dispatch lab workers to the homes to test residents and staff for COVID-19, so he took time off and went to the doctor. His test was positive.

“There are [state owned] houses and empty buildings. They could’ve put sick people in there,” the employee said. “One building could hold 500 people. It breaks my heart because they care to claim about the individuals, and by their actions, they directly hurt people. I love my job, but I hate the agency. These people have blood on their hands.”

The story very much echoes the scandal of what happened in New York's nursing homes.