PropertyValue
?:author
?:datePublished
  • 2020-05-27 (xsd:date)
?:headline
  • Were NY Nursing Homes Full of COVID-19 Patients While Hospital Ship Sat Empty? (en)
?:inLanguage
?:itemReviewed
?:mentions
?:reviewBody
  • A meme about New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo was making the rounds in May 2020 that criticized his management of COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic patients in New York and the resources at his disposal. The meme said, While the USNS Comfort sat in New York empty and unused, Andrew Cuomo mandated nursing homes to take COVID patients. The reality is a bit more complicated. While Cuomo did indeed direct that COVID-19 patients be sent to nursing homes to help ease the burden on hospitals, the underutilization of the USNS Comfort was due to a wide range of factors. On March 25, Cuomo and the state New York Health Department directed that recovering COVID-19 patients be discharged from hospitals and sent to nursing homes. At least 4,500 patients were sent to already vulnerable nursing homes, according to data compiled by The Associated Press (AP). Many blamed the controversial order for more than 5,800 deaths in nursing and adult care facilities in New York, more than in any other state. That order, from the office of New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker, came amid a scramble to provide more hospital beds. The order said: The plan, according to AP, quickly came under attack: On May 10, Cuomo reversed the order, saying now only patients who tested negative for the virus could be released to nursing homes. He continued to defend the decision, arguing he was following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) guidelines. He also said: Meanwhile, at the end of March, according to The New York Times, the USNS Comfort was sent to New York City to aid hospitals overburdened with COVID-19 patients by taking on non-coronavirus cases. U.S. President Donald Trump himself oversaw the ship's departure from Norfolk, Virginia. But on April 2, the 1,000-bed facility only had 20 patients. A combination of military protocols and bureaucratic hurdles prevented the ship from accepting many patients, frustrating many hospital leaders. The New York Times report outlined the hurdles that restricted patient intake in early April: At the same time, according to the Times, the number of non-COVID-19 patients in New York City hospitals had dropped: Michael Dowling, head of New York's largest hospital system, expressed his frustration over the hurdles getting patients to the hospital ship: On April 6, Cuomo asked Trump for permission to treat coronavirus patients on the ship. Trump agreed, and the Navy reconfigured the ship into a 500-bed hospital so it could space out patients to avoid spreading the disease. But on that same day, a crew member tested positive for the disease, even after the crew had been ordered to quarantine for two weeks before their departure for New York. The number of infected grew to four in the following weeks. By April 21, the ship had treated only 179 patients, not even close to its capacity. Trump acknowledged during a White House briefing that the reason the ship wasn't put to much use was because its arrival coincided with the opening of a military-supported temporary hospital at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. A commander of the Comfort's task force supporting the COVID-19 mission in New York City echoed the sentiment: The Javits center's makeshift hospital treated around 1,000 patients during its run, and was closed by May 1 after it appeared that New York City was past the peak of the pandemic. Days before, Cuomo met Trump at the White House, where the president asked him about relocating the Comfort back to its base where it could be dispatched to other locations. Cuomo later told MSNBC that the state no longer needed the hospital ship. Barely a month after the ship arrived in New York, it returned to Norfolk. In summary, Cuomo's administration did issue a controversial directive that sent recovering COVID-19 patients to nursing homes, which may have contributed to a spike in COVID-19-related deaths in those facilities. Officials reversed the order in May. The USNS Comfort's inability to take in more patients was due to a combination of bureaucratic hurdles for New York City hospitals who found it difficult to send patients to the ship in the first place. Even after the ship opened up to treating COVID-19 patients, it was still unable to fill all of its beds. Therefore, we rate this claim as a Mixture. (en)
?:reviewRating
rdf:type
?:url