Do you agree with Gov. Cuomo?

[DesiDani]

That the reason why COVID got into the nursing home is because staff brought it in while coming into work. It did not come from patients bringing it to the nursing homes.

I assume that the patients coming in to the nursing home were new admits, or patient who got sent to hospital from nursing homes to discover that they have COVID.

[TheMoonisMyLantern, ADN, LPN, RN]

In my facility it was absolutely introduced by staff as we had very few admissions at the beginning of the pandemic and MD appointments were put on hold. However, I'm not sure that that could have been helped.

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

I think it was a combination. Due to poor wages most ancially nursing home staff have more than one job to make ends meet. So yes, I do think that staff may have contributed to the problem. But way I understand it Cuomo firected staff at acute hospitals to transfer stable Covid patients to SNF to make room for more critical Covid patients in the acute setting. If that is the truth Cuomo has a lot to answer for.

Hppy

[amoLucia]

Waaaay back early 2020, the big governmental public concern was the very highly publicized lack of sufficient ventilator machines for all the intubated hospital pts that the hospitals were anticipating. Yes, there was a need. Even General Motors was deployed into manufacturing ventilators for that surge of Covid pts that was being expected. And ventilators were being imported from abroad.

But there was almost NO real coverage of the vulnerable pts in nsg homes. I retired from LTC/NHs. I recognized them as the 'staff factor' for a causative factor for the C19 transmission. So many of the staff at all the places I worked very freq worked at multiple facilities, esp the CNAs, kitchen & hskpg staff (all the lowest paid employees in the facilities). At various times, I even had a second PT job at my prev NH.

Nursing homes were the MOST unrecognized and UNDER-managed populations of pts AND staff, throughout the early pandemic. UNAVAILABILTY of PPE and LACK of testing for NH staff & pts was obscene! *** I did found it ironic however, that there was adequate supplies & testing for prof sports athletes & celebrities at that time! (whole other issue!)

I think the SH** hit the fan when all those bodies began to pile up that escalating NH deaths were occurring. It was the media/press that made it known that temporary morgue facilities were DESPARATELY needed.

In no way, shape or form am I surprised that there was inventive 'reporting & documentation' of Covid's incidence & prevalence. I don't doubt that Cuomo was a part of that manipulative reporting fiasco. For what reason?  It was a known 'given that New York already had the earliest highest rates in the country (and poor NJ got its overflow!)

Once again, on the national level, it was demonstrated that HEALTH CARE STAFF ARE EXPENDABLE.

*** Sad to say, that some of the PPE & testing problems still exist at some facilities. Now it's vaxxing added to the mix!

[DesiDani]

10 minutes ago, amoLucia said:

Nursing homes were the MOST unrecognized and UNDER-managed populations of pts AND staff, throughout the early pandemic. UNAVAILABILTY of PPE and LACK of testing for NH staff & pts was obscene! *** I did found it ironic however, that there was adequate supplies & testing for prof sports athletes & celebrities at that time! (whole other issue!)

So are you saying that even staff was the source of infection, it could have been prevented with proper management and supply of PPE for those working in NH? Let me add, that since most of the people more at risk of COVID are in nursing homes. 

Sort of like a highway was built OVER nursing homes

[Emergent, RN]

Cuomo is an utter horse's ***. Get outta your ivory tower, man!

[MunoRN, RN]

https://khn.org/news/is-cuomo-directive-to-blame-for-nursing-home-covid-deaths-as-us-official-claims/

I don't disagree that Cuomo is a slimeball, but transferring patients back to the nursing homes they came from, particularly when hospital resources are stretched that thin,  was not limited to New York.  

There's has been evidence of any nursing home where a patient transferred back from the hospital was the source of Covid at the nursing home. 

Keeping then in the hospital when they no longer needed hospital care would have probably cost more lives than it would have saved. 

[TheMoonisMyLantern, ADN, LPN, RN]

With the way nursing homes are ran how could anyone be surprised that the death toll is what it is? 

I've told my co-workers, and I get called paranoid for it, that when this pandemic is all said and done the powers that be are going to scrutinize every decision that was made in LTC and how it effected our outcomes for residents. I would bet my bottom dollar that the administrators will find a way to throw front line staff under the bus. That our "incompetence" and mere presence caused the uncontrolled spread of Covid in these facilities, not the lack of PPE, not the lack of adequate staffing, not the lack of planning for an infectious outbreak.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

The news items I read is that Cuomo forced nursing homes to take new admit covid positive patients that weren't critical, to free up hospital resources. If that's true, he's the biggest **%&^$#$ that there ever was.

Nursing home staff in the area where I live were not allowed to work at multiple jobs. I had 5 techs and 1 nurse in my clinic that were PRN at LTCs. Those that were, quit when this was decided. Then the LTCs cried about loss of staff, as many did this. For cross contamination concerns, it was necessary. Perhaps if staffing and pay were better for CNAs, they would have chosen differently

[MunoRN, RN]

21 hours ago, Hoosier_RN said:

The news items I read is that Cuomo forced nursing homes to take new admit covid positive patients that weren't critical, to free up hospital resources. If that's true, he's the biggest **%&^$#$ that there ever was.

Nursing home staff in the area where I live were not allowed to work at multiple jobs. I had 5 techs and 1 nurse in my clinic that were PRN at LTCs. Those that were, quit when this was decided. Then the LTCs cried about loss of staff, as many did this. For cross contamination concerns, it was necessary. Perhaps if staffing and pay were better for CNAs, they would have chosen differently

That is how it's been commonly portrayed in the media; that governor Cuomo forced nursing homes where Covid was not already spreading to accept new, Covid positive patients and that this is what introduced Covid to these nursing homes.  That's not what happened.

What the NY DOH statement said was that they needed to accept patient returning from hospitals.  These were NH residents who had contracted Covid in their NH, were then sent to a hospital and found to not require hospital care.  Given the triaging /rationing of care occurring at the time at NY hospitals, it was critical that patients be discharged when they no longer needed hospital care.  It also included info on how to obtain proper PPE from the state if they didn't have it.

NY, like every other state, already had requirements regarding NH requirements to accept readmission of patients sent to a hospital, and like many other states their Department of Health issued guidance / reminders that this not only still applied during Covid, but was all the more important as Hospitals became overburdened.  Yet for whatever reason NY got singled out (which was probably not helped by the fact that Cuomo just generally comes across as a slimeball).  

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

12 minutes ago, MunoRN said:

(which was probably not helped by the fact that Cuomo just generally comes across as a slimeball).  

He does come across as that. I think that whatever future political aspirations he held are now gone. Sad, because perception of the voters is everything

[MunoRN, RN]

3 minutes ago, Hoosier_RN said:

He does come across as that. I think that whatever future political aspirations he held are now gone. Sad, because perception of the voters is everything

That's the odd thing about NY, someone who most of the rest of the country sees as a general A-hole can do just fine in NY politcs.  Cuomo's approval among NY residents remains largely unchanged, currently at around 56% approval in most polls.