Following a report from Attorney General Letitia James that nursing home deaths from COVID-19 were undercounted by the Cuomo administration by up to 50%, the New York State Senate is set to respond by passing ten bills through its Health Committee, some of which are a direct response to the report’s findings.

What You Need To Know

  • The State Senate is expected to pass ten bills next week in response to a scathing report on nursing home deaths issued last week by the attorney general

  • The report from Attorney General Letitia James found that the Cuomo administration underreported nursing home deaths from COVID-19

  • Once the bills pass committee they go to the full senate for a vote

“This is just a series of bills, some of which have existed since the hearings we did last year, and some of them as a response to the report that we all were shocked to get last week," said Democrat Gustavo Rivera. "But we’ve been consulting with advocates, working with families and stakeholders to really craft a group of legislation that is going to address some of the concerns we have about nursing homes.”

The package of bills includes one requiring ratings of nursing homes to be displayed publicly, another allowing compassionate care visits for very ill residents, and new regulations for the transfer of patients from one facility to another.

One bill, sponsored by Senator Rivera, would require that deaths of nursing home residents in hospitals be recorded as nursing home deaths, something the Cuomo administration neglected to do, and was the key failing identified in the James report. 

“You can acknowledge that mistakes were made, apparently this administration does not know how to do that," added Rivera. "They just go forward as if the report said nothing untoward. As a matter of fact, the governor on Friday, after giving a 45-minute soliloquy that did not acknowledge the report, was asked by a reporter, and he acted as if the Attorney General had put out a cookbook.”

Earlier this week, the State Assembly’s Health Committee passed a bill requiring greater staffing levels at nursing homes and hospitals. That bill had languished in the legislature for 20 years, but got new life after the James report. 

“Nursing home patients were transferred into hospitals, hospitals didn’t have enough staff to care for them. So they were transferred back to nursing homes. Nursing homes didn’t have enough staff to care for them," said Judy Gonzalez of the New York State Nurses Association. "And sometimes they were transferred again back to hospitals. So people died in the transfer process. It was horrendous. Everybody was kind of dumping on each other because no one could handle the volume.”

The Senate package of bills is expected to pass the Health Committee next week. That sets them up for a vote by the full senate. Each bill would then have to be passed by the Assembly before heading to Governor Cuomo’s desk for his signature.

They now have the votes to override him, however, should he veto them. The Governor’s Office says they will review the bills.