Leadership of fools mid-crisis
Emails bare Cuo’s hosp-ship fiasco
ur greatest concern is two-fold: helping take the strain off local hospitals and not wasting high-end capabilities the US military has brought to NYC. — Vice Admiral Mike Dumont (inset) in an April 2020 letter to the Cuomo administration
A US Navy admiral begged the Cuomo administration to send patients to the nearly-empty hospital ship docked on the Hudson River during the height of the pandemic — but his pleas were met with politics and paranoia, The Post has learned.
With city medical facilities packed with critically ill COVID patients in the spring of 2020 — and just days after the infamous edict by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to send COVID patients to nursing homes, which critics say resulted in thousands of deaths — the Trump administration sent the USNS Comfort, a 1,000-bed ship, to relieve hospitals of patients with nonCOVID illnesses.
Another federal facility was set up in the Jacob Javits Center with room for 2,500 beds. Both famously sat mostly empty during their time of operation — with state and federal officials blaming each other.
But in a trove of unearthed government emails obtained by activist Peter Arbeeny and provided to The Post, a frustrated Vice Admiral Mike Dumont urged the Cuomo administration to act.
“We could use some help from your office,” he wrote on April 7, 2020, to Cuomo’s (inset, top) chief aide, Melissa DeRosa (lower). “The Governor asked us to permit use of USNS COMFORT to treat patients without regard to their COVID status and we have done so. Right now we only have 37 patients aboard the ship. Further, we are treating only 83 patients at the Javits Events Center.
“We have been trying for days to get the Health Evacuation Coordination Center (HECC) to transfer more patients to us but with little success. We are told by NYC officials the HECC falls under the State’s Department of Health,” the email continued. “Our greatest concern is two-fold: helping take the strain off local hospitals, and not wasting high-end capabilities the
US military has brought.”
Within minutes, DeRosa circulated the message to the state’s top COVID officials, including Michael Kopy, director of New York’s emergency management office; city Health Commissioner Howard Zucker and Michael J. Dowling, the CEO of Northwell Health.
Kopy became defensive — and blamed The Comfort for overly onerous regulations.
DeRosa, sniffing a plot, pivoted to politics, telling the trio to be on guard and accusing Dumont of setting up Team Cuomo for blame.
“They are setting this up to say that we are the reason the ship and javits are empty – I’m going to loop you guys on the email. we need to make clear in writing that what he has written here is not true.”
Red-tape mess
In the end, the red tape proved too much, with the famed ship treating only 182 patients, and the massive Javits Center only 1,095.
Dumont, who retired in 2021, told The Post he was disheartened by DeRosa’s reaction, which was relayed to him by The Post.
“It is discouraging to learn they completely misread and misunderstood the request for assistance,” he said. “We had neither the time nor the interest in setting anyone up for blame. My request was solely to highlight the low numbers of patients being treated and ask for their help . . . How they reached these conclusions is both perplexing and discouraging.”
The communications between the officials took place just days after Cuomo’s executive order forcing nursing homes to accept COVID positive patients from overflowing hospitals. The March 25 order led to at least 15,000 deaths.
“As is evident from the emails, the red tape the admiral claimed prevented patient inflow did not exist. If his feelings were hurt, we’re sorry about that,” Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi told The Post.