Posted on 05/13/2020 5:28:09 PM PDT by Enlightened1
Faced with 20,000 coronavirus deaths and counting, the nation’s nursing homes are pushing back against a potential flood of lawsuits with a sweeping lobbying effort to get states to grant them emergency protection from claims of inadequate care.
At least 15 states have enacted laws or governors’ orders that explicitly or apparently provide nursing homes and long-term care facilities some protection from lawsuits arising from the crisis. And in the case of New York, which leads the nation in deaths in such facilities, a lobbying group wrote the first draft of a measure that apparently makes it the only state with specific protection from both civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution.
Now the industry is forging ahead with a campaign to get other states on board with a simple argument: This was an unprecedented crisis and nursing homes should not be liable for events beyond their control, such as shortages of protective equipment and testing, shifting directives from authorities, and sicknesses that have decimated staffs.
“As our care providers make these difficult decisions, they need to know they will not be prosecuted or persecuted,” read a letter sent this month from several major hospital and nursing home groups to their next big goal, California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has yet to make a decision. Other states in their sights include Florida, Pennsylvania and Missouri.
Watchdogs, patient advocates and lawyers argue that immunity orders are misguided. At a time when the crisis is laying bare such chronic industry problems as staffing shortages and poor infection control, they say legal liability is the last safety net to keep facilities accountable.
(Excerpt) Read more at insurancejournal.com ...
I would say a case by case basis.
No blanket immunity anything.
In Pennsylvania the Governor along with the Health Dept forced the homes to take virus stricken people in.
Sue the crap out of them.
Agree and that is already the current law.
Obviously some of them know they are up to no good.
Agree and the Tyrant of P.A. has no legal authority.
If there wasn’t so much misinformation about HCQ for the purpose of profit and probably worse motives, we could save many of our elderly. In Texas, a doctor saved the lives of the majority of of her patients in a nursing home.
I will agree that that makes sense, ONLY in states or areas where they were forced to take CCPVirus patients in. Otherwise, they better be able to prove they took all the necessary actions at the right times.
Agree!
You don’t know how badly I want to see that prissy tyrant Wolf and his freak Secretary of Health punished.
Especially now knowing the freak removed his mom from a care center before sending the infected in.
They may or may not.
I think some who were ordered by govt to take in covid cases don’t want to be liable for govt mandated schemes like that.
“no blanket immunity anything.”
Normally, I’d agree. But in NY, where Cuomo ordered the infected back into the nursing homes, I’d say its a special situation. At least, a factor to be considered if the home wasn’t otherwise negligent (and some are).
We know of one woman who has been picketing anursing home that Cuomo killed her 90+ year old mother.Signs all over her car.
13 May: NY Post: Pennsylvania health official moved mother from nursing home as deaths skyrocketed
By Ben Feuerherd
Pennsylvania Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine said Tuesday that her 95-year-old mother requested to be moved out of a personal care home, a local ABC affiliate reported.
“My mother requested, and my sister and I as her children complied to move her to another location during the COVID-19 outbreak,” Levine said, according to ABC27.
“My mother is 95 years old. She is very intelligent and more than competent to make her own decisions,” she added...
In March, Levine ordered long-term care facilities in the state to continue to accept coronavirus patients who had been discharged from hospitals but who were unable to return to their homes, the Bucks County Courier Times reported.
Of the state’s 3,806 coronavirus deaths, 2,611 had occurred in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, according to ABC27.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/13/pennsylvania-health-official-moved-mother-from-nursing-home/
13 May: PennLive: ‘Please don’t misgender me’: Reporter calls Pa. health secretary ‘sir’ multiple times during interview
By Jenna Wise
A Pittsburgh radio station is again under scrutiny after one of its reporters called Department of Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender woman, “sir” at least three times during a Tuesday press call.
The incident happened while KDKA-AM personality Marty Griffin was asking a question about what the state’s “end game” is for reopening after the coronavirus, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star...
Griffin later apologized on Twitter and said distractions caused him to use the wrong pronouns...
According to 2 Political Junkies, a Pittsburgh-based blog, Griffin made a similar error in 2014 when he called former soldier and whistleblower Chelsea Manning “Mr. Bradley,” and said she’d had some sort of “bizarre sex-change thing” going on. Manning had come out as transgender the year before...
This is not the first time KDKA-AM was involved in controversy this year. Host Wendy Bell was recently criticized for questioning whether it was worth shutting the economy down to “save less than 1% of our population” from the coronavirus.
https://www.pennlive.com/news/2020/05/reporter-calls-pa-health-secretary-sir-multiple-times-in-phone-interview.html
nope, still case by case.
because some could have been negligent in care and died and have nothing to do with covid
but, if they are going tgru the trouble of a lwasuit, allow them to sue cuomom and all those involved in this policy
Well, there’s a few options here:
- Grant them the immunity and see no justice served
- Deny the immunity and put everyone of them out of business
or
- Charge the owners with criminal negligence and leave the facilities free to operate.
Wolf,Cuomo and Murphy along with many under them belong in prison for this scandal alone. The number of nursing home deaths is a massacre.
Most people won’t be told that it was the governors of these states that FORCED them to take in coronavirus positive patients. Whitmer, Murphy, Cuomo, Newsome and Wolf all did so-THEY SHOULD BE SUED AND FORCED TO LEAVE OFFICE.
They have earned their place in the dung heap of history like those expelled in the 1618 Third Defenestration of Prague.
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