The Whitmer administration needs to immediately release the number of COVID-19 related deaths statewide.
May 21, 2020
Traverse City Record-Eagle Editorial Board: Whitmer’s Nursing Home ‘Hub’ Plan Is “A Disaster Waiting To Happen”
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed a third executive order (2020-95) on nursing homes late yesterday evening. While Whitmer’s administration continues to not release statewide COVID-19 data and deaths related to nursing homes, The Washington Post reports “Between one-third and one-half of coronavirus deaths nationwide have occurred among residents of long-term care facilities.”
Today, the Traverse City Record-Eagle Editorial Board writes that Whitmer’s “COVID ‘hub’ system is a disaster waiting to happen.”
It doesn’t take much common sense to see the flaws in the State of Michigan’s plan to warehouse convalescing COVID-19 patients in nursing homes” and “We just hope Whitmer and state health officials change course before colliding with such an obvious disaster.
Whitmer’s executive order 2020-95 does not eliminate the hub policy that continues to be questioned by legislators in both political parties.
Gongwer Michigan reported yesterday that a group of “House Democrats said last week they oppose the nursing home regional hub approach” and that the group sent Whitmer a letter that read in part “transferring COVID patients from hospitals to nursing homes threatens to make the problem worse.”
Michigan Senate Republicans have held two Oversight Committee hearings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Michigan’s nursing homes and State Sen. Peter Lucido has called for an investigation into the matter.
In an editorial yesterday, The Detroit News called on Whitmer to immediately end the policy stating: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis protected nursing home residents from the beginning, prohibiting COIVD-19 patients discharged from the hospital from returning to their long-term facilities. Rather, he set aside dedicated facilities to handle these patients.”
The Whitmer administration needs to immediately release the number of COVID-19 related deaths statewide in nursing homes and identify a plan using best practice that has worked in other states to keep members of our most vulnerable population safe in nursing homes. – Tori Sachs, executive director of Michigan Rising Action.