6 July 2021: Cuomo Nursing Home Policies Cited in California Neglect Case

Editorial | Why families remain primary advocates for changes at nursing homes

Although this editorial is about patient neglect at a nursing home in Santa Cruz, California, the spector of Governor Cuomo's disastrous deadly 25 March 2020 directive is cited as an example of politicians choosing to look the other way.

Sadly, the accounts of negligence in the treatment of elderly, infirm patients and unacceptable communication between families and management at Capitola’s Pacific Coast Manor are not shocking at all.

Not after the horrifying toll on patients, and staff, in California and across the nation as COVID-19 laid bare the fact that nursing homes were in many cases not capable of controlling the spread of the virus, and that state regulators were not providing the necessary oversight to keep patients safe.

Politicians have mostly looked the other way. You might remember the scandal in New York state when the it was discovered that state officials had undercounted nursing home deaths during the pandemic by as much as 50%. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo actually put out an order (later rescinded) that would have required nursing homes to re-admit residents with COVID-19.

But California is not much better. News reports in 2020 as the pandemic raged found some California nursing homes were not even testing residents in order to avoid negative publicity.

And, similar to New York, there was a move to require some skilled nursing facilities to accept people who were recovering but still infectious from the virus. This requirement eventually was revised so that facilities without adequate infection controls would not have to accept these patients.

As of July 5, a total of 155,242 cases and 13,033 deaths have been reported at nursing facilities in California, according to the Los Angeles Times. These deaths represent 21% of all deaths attributed to COVID-19 in California.

California is one of five states to adopt a policy similar to the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive. What makes California different from the other four is that it rescinded Governor Newsom's copycat policy within a few days of implementing it, greatly limiting the damage. As bad as the COVID death toll in California's nursing homes was, it would have been much worse had state officials ignored the obvious consequences that would result from sustaining such a badly considered policy.