8 February 2022: State Lawmakers Want Audit of COVID Nursing Home Deaths

State lawmakers push for audit of COVID nursing home deaths

This report indicates the call for an audit is linked to new legislation being advanced by Republican members of New York's state senate, and is perhaps an inevitable response to newly installed New York Health Commissioner Mary Bassett's statement she would not investigate the COVID nursing home deaths that occurred under Andrew M. Cuomo's deadly 25 March 2020 directive .

Republican state senators proposed legislation Monday they say would help prevent COVID from ever running rampant through nursing homes again.

They gathered at the state Capitol to call out Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett for refusing to investigate Cuomo-era nursing home COVID policies.

Sen. Jim Tedisco is among the lawmakers introducing legislation that would compel the commissioner to review previous pandemic policies.

As you may recall, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo had come under fire for a policy that sent hospitalized nursing home residents back to their facilities, even if they hadn't tested negative – and for undercounting nursing home COVID deaths.

Tedisco has called for an independent investigation of all of it and is urging Gov. Hochul to include the legislation in her budget amendments.

It's unlikely that replacement NY Governor Kathy Hochul will consent with the request, given how damaging any serious investigation into Cuomo's COVID nursing home scandals would be for members of her political party. That sentiment is behind why NY Health Commissioner Mary Bassett has stated she would not conduct such a probe, which is the subject of the next report.

‘Complete disregard’: Hochul health boss hit on lack of Cuomo nursing home probe

The following excerpt recaps how Bassett's comments dismissing any probe of COVID nursing home deaths in New York have led to calls for an audit of those deaths by state lawmakers:

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s new health commissioner, Dr. Mary Bassett, showed “complete disregard” towards families of nursing home COVID-19 victim’s families when she said she “won’t unravel” mistakes made under ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo that led to the deaths of over 15,000 elderly New Yorkers, Republican lawmakers charged.

“I came into this year with high hopes that we would hear from a new administration – a new health commissioner – with the desire to right the wrongs of the past. Instead, Dr. Bassett showed a complete disregard for the 15,000-plus New Yorkers when she said, during her recent confirmation hearings, that she will ‘not look back,’ or in her words, ‘unravel’ what happened with the former administration. That is totally unacceptable,” said state Sen. Sue Serino (R-Hyde Park) in Albany Monday.

Bassett recently told state lawmakers that she won’t “unravel what had happened in the nursing homes” or call for an investigation into the pandemic policies under her predecessor, Dr. Howard Zucker – specifically tied to the infamous March 25, 2020 order.

Bassett said she instead wants to “look forward,” but also added she would rather resign instead of implementing a similar policy that would force her to put individuals in harm’s way.

But Serino said the answer isn’t good enough.

“Too many New York families who are impacted by the state’s horrible pandemic policies don’t get the luxury of not looking back,” she said Monday.

Mysteries that still need to be solved include who wrote and approved the Cuomo administration's deadly 25 March 2020 directive, what logic did they believe justified such a policy that would clearly cause more deaths than would have occurred without it, who implemented and enforced it, and what methods did they use to compel nursing home operators to comply with it?

All that is to say an audit of Cuomo's COVID nursing home deaths is a good place to start. We think much more serious investigations, including criminal probes, will also need to occur.