Whitmer Sent COVID Patients To Michigan Nursing Homes Endangering

I must admit this one slipped by me and for that, I apologize. In fact, it had slipped by many in the news because there was not a lot of reporting on this colossal failure by Whitmer.

For weeks we have heard about Governor Cuomo of New York who signed an Executive Order that forced state nursing homes and assisted living facilities, many who were ill-equipped to stop the spread of the disease, to accept residents with COVID-19. The decision proved to have fatal consequences, with a third of all coronavirus deaths in the state occurring in nursing homes.

Michigan’s own Governor Whitmer had done the exact same thing. Putting the most vulnerable Michigan population at risk and certainly personally signing some of their death certificates when on April 15^th she signed executive order 2020-50 mandating that all Michigan nursing homes and other long-term care facilities accept COVID-19 patients from nearby hospitals.

If a nursing home’s occupancy is at 80% or more of its capacity, it could decline to take the patient but must refer the COVID patients to a “regional hub” or another long-term care facility with additional rooms and resources.

The order specifically stated:

A nursing home with a census below 80% must create a unit dedicated to the care of COVID-19-affected residents (“dedicated unit”) and must provide appropriate PPE, as available, to direct-care employees who staff the dedicated unit. A nursing home provider that operates multiple facilities may create a dedicated unit by dedicating a facility for such a purpose.
If the long-term care facility where the resident resided prior to the onset of one or more of the principal symptoms of COVID-19 (“facility of residence”) has a dedicated unit and provides appropriate PPE to the direct-care employees who staff the dedicated unit, the hospital must discharge the resident to their facility of residence for placement in the dedicated unit, provided there is available bed capacity.

Whitmer was putting all of our elderly citizens, the population most at risk from COVID-19, at severe risk of death. In fact according to many studies and as reported by the Detroit News:

“about a third of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. have been at nursing homes. As re, and the same is true in Michigan, according to some estimates — although the state Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t been able to offer concrete numbers.”

The “state Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t been able to offer concrete numbers”, you have to be kidding me. How are we to trust any of these COVID-19 numbers reported by the state if they have no “concrete numbers” from the nursing home deaths? You would think that would be an easy number to know.

Melissa Samuel, president of the Health Care Association of Michigan stated: