Elmira,
N.Y., September 18—State Senator Tom O’Mara (R,C,I-Big Flats), the ranking
member on the Senate Investigations Committee, today renewed his call for an
independent investigation into how New York’s COVID-19 response impacted
nursing homes, where at least 6,500 elderly New Yorkers have died over the past
six months.
O’Mara and
his Senate GOP colleagues have also launched a new online petition to allow
their constituents to help join the fight for an independent
investigation. The new petition can be
found on O’Mara’s Senate website, www.omara.nysenate.gov.
According to
O’Mara, joint, bipartisan Senate-Assembly hearings on August 3 and August 10
failed to satisfy many state lawmakers that top Cuomo administration officials
are fully answering questions on the crisis, including the exact number of
nursing home deaths.
O’Mara said,
“I and many other legislators, on both sides of the aisle, have continued to
push for an independent investigation into this crisis and tragedy since
April. Thousands of lives have been lost
and too many questions have been raised, and remain unanswered, to have
in-house Cuomo administration reports be the final word. An independent investigation is warranted and
necessary for the families who have lost loved ones, the caregivers who put
themselves at risk, and to ensure better and safer policies moving forward.
That’s what we’re trying to achieve.”
O’Mara
currently co-sponsors legislation (S8756), which has bipartisan support and is
sponsored by a Democratic Assembly member from New York City, to establish an
independent, bipartisan, temporary commission that would be able to issue
subpoenas to compel testimony and fully investigate and issue a report on the
COVID-19 nursing home crisis – particularly on how state policies and
directives impacted the spread of the coronavirus within nursing homes and
other residential care facilities.
In May, an
in-house state Department of Health (DOH) report pinned the blame for the
COVID-19 crisis in nursing homes on infected staff and downplayed the
consequences of a March 25 DOH directive that many point to for having required
nursing homes to accept elderly COVID-positive patients being released from
hospitals back into their facilities.
