Policies for disabled may face scrutiny
Cuomo’s group home moves similar to nursing home plan
At the urging of his Republican colleagues, state Sen. James Skoufis — who chairs the chamber’s investigations committee — said he is interested in examining Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s COVID-19 policies at group home facilities for people with developmental disabilities, which have mirrored those of nursing homes.
Skoufis said he had discussed the issue on a call Sunday night with Sen. Mike Martucci, the top Republican on the disabilities committee. Senate Republicans followed up with a letter Monday, signed by four members, asking Skoufis to initiate an investigation of the matter.
The letter points to policies that didn’t prioritize giving personal protective equipment to facilities overseen by the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities. Staff at those facilities also were not required to work overtime to help deal with the challenges of coronavirus fections. But a focus of the push for the probe is an April 10 directive from OPWDD, an executive branch agency, that facilities should accept Covid-positive patients.
Critics have compared that directive to the controversial March 25 order instructing nursing homes to accept Covid-positive residents. The April 10 policy is still in effect, and says if patients are “medically stable” and “asymptomatic” then, “no individual shall be denied re-admission or admission.”
“Some of the information and perspective that (Martucci) shared and brought to my attention last night is alarming and is worth looking into,” Skoufis said. “Given the similarity of the directive to the very controversial nursing home executive order, and the very simple fact that these group homes are congregate settings, this is something I want to do some information gathering on.”
Jennifer O’sullivan, a spokeswoman for OPWDD, said in an emailed statement that “certain legislators” are spreading untruths about the policy.
“If they actually took the time to closely read OPWDD’S guidance which was issued nearly a year ago, they would understand that residents of OPWDD group homes who were sent to the hospital for COVID-19 treatment were only returned to their homes after being deemed safe to return by the hospital physician, in consultation with the residential provider,” she said. “Group home providers were only to accept individuals if they could safely accommodate them within the group home.”
That is a similar defense to what Cuomo’s administration has offered of the nursing home policy.
Some have said the directives unnecessarily exposed the most vulnerable New Yorkers to COVID-19, causing additional deaths. Cuomo has said the directives were issued to protect the hospitals from being overwhelmed. The letter cites a report from Disability Rights New York, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest and the New York Civil Liberties Union that people in OPWDD were three times more likely to contract or die of COVID-19 than the broader population.
O’sullivan said that there have been 6,969 COVID-19 cases in OPWDD facilities in New York and 553 deaths, “regardless of location of death.” The total population of OPWDD residents was 34,551, as of Sunday.
Skoufis added that there are important differences between OPWDD facilities and nursing homes — families can more easily take people out of OPWDD facilities, for instance — and that he wouldn’t commit outright to holding hearings. But he said he wanted to explore the issue and potentially partner with Sen. John Mannion, who chairs the Committee on Disabilities, because, “this is something that deserves examination.”
Cuomo is under two federal investigations for his administration’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes and the decision made to withhold information about the total number of deaths from people who contracted the virus in those facilities. The signatories of the Monday letter connect the nursing home scandal and Cuomo’s handling of OPWDD facilities, saying the lack of transparency is the same.
“To date, OPWDD has resisted calls for greater transparency regarding the release of data related to group homes. I respectfully request that you launch a transparent and comprehensive investigation into OPWDD as the chair of the Investigations and Government Operations Committee,” says the letter, which is signed by state Sens. Anthony Palumbo, James Tedisco, Fred Akshar and Martucci. “We must come together as New Yorkers and demand that OPWDD be transparent about their conduct during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Marc Molinaro, the Dutchess County executive and father of a child with a disability, has also been vocal on this issue. He sent a letter last month to legislative leaders, including Mannion, calling for a review of the OPWDD coronavirus policies.
“This has been a stubborn fight by the state every step of the way and it’s because those with disabilities have never been front and center in their spectrum of care,” Molinaro said Monday, noting the directive for the facilities to accept COVID patients and that the state wouldn’t allow counties to distribute personal protective equipment to the facilities last spring.
“It’s almost as if Albany has washed their hands of responsibility and it’s really, really disturbing,” he said.