June 29, 2022
Whitmer Continues to Face Major Criticism for Nursing Home Failures
Lansing, Mich., June 29, 2022 – Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s dangerous nursing home COVID policies have raised many questions but have resulted in few answers. Seniors were isolated from their families, healthy residents were commingled with COVID-positive patients, and the state underreported nursing home deaths by 30%. Families of nursing home residents were not allowed to see their loved ones and were ignored when they advocated for the safety of residents.
Journalist Charlie LeDuff addressed the reasons that Michigan does not have answers about Whitmer’s dangerous nursing home policies:
“Now that she is seeking re-election, Whitmer denies she ever ordered the housing of the COVID sick in the same building as the healthy. This can generously be called an un-truth.
How many people in Michigan died? We’ll probably never know. Just as there is no telling how many seniors died in Michigan’s other senior living communities. State health officials decided to ignore Whitmer’s order to count them, which was also part of her May 2020 directive.”
LeDuff also interviewed Joe LeBlanc of Heather Hills Assisted Living Facility in Grand Rapids, who criticized the unanswered questions about Governor Whitmer’s nursing home policies:
“Ignoring the assisted living centers had a devastating effect,” says Joe LeBlanc, former vice chairman of the board for the Michigan Center for Assisted Living, an industry trade group. “All that executive order really did was stop human interaction. We were provided no assistance or personal protection equipment. We were essentially ordered to lock people away. The staff got burned-out, and the residents gave up. What was there for them to live for?
LeBlanc says it is impossible to know how many people died from the state mandated isolation. ‘How can we know that number,’ LeBlanc asks, ‘when the state never even bothered to track the true numbers of COVID deaths?’
State health officials told me they did not track the smaller assisted living homes for privacy reasons, and turned a blind eye to the larger communities because the addresses they had on file were unreliable. In total, this constitutes nearly 40% of this population.”
The criticisms, which now include an assisted living facility executive, speak volumes about the deadly implications of Whitmer’s nursing home policy and Attorney General Dana Nessel’s refusal to investigate the situation. Despite claims that her policies saved lives, the policies were deemed dangerous when Whitmer conducted the following actions:
- Directed nursing homes to commingle positive and negative COVID patients, vetoed a bill that would stop nursing homes from commingling positive and negative COVID patients, and then denied that she ordered the commingling practice.
- Allowed the state to underreport COVID deaths in nursing homes, and allowed MDHHS Director Hertel to defend the state’s inaccurate count.
- Endangered the lives of patients in the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program when employees did not visit patients during the pandemic, despite having explicit approval from MDHHS.
“The major criticisms of Gretchen Whitmer’s mishandling of COVID continue to mount, as she ignores the questions that need answers,” said Eric Ventimiglia, Executive Director for Michigan Rising Action. Ventimiglia continued, “LeDuff and LeBlanc represent the voices of Michigan families that were impacted by Whitmer’s incompetent and dangerous nursing home policies. Michigan families deserve answers now.”