$2.5M Expansion Of Program To Fight Elderly Abuse: Cuomo

"We believe in standing up for the fair, equal treatment of all of our citizens and protecting our most vulnerable, including the elderly."

 

by Lisa Finn 

The effort is meant to help adults 60 or older who are at risk for harm or exploitation due to physical limitations, cognitive impairment or dementia, and social isolation, the governor said. (Courtesy Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Office.)

LONG ISLAND, NY — Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the $2.5 million expansion of a program meant to fight back against abuse of the elderly in New York State.

On Friday, Cuomo announced the infusion of funding to benefit the enhanced multidisciplinary teams initiative, which protects vulnerable adults at risk of abuse, neglect, or financial exploitation.

The funding, which will be provided annually through September 2022, assists adults 60 and older who are at risk due to physical limitations, cognitive impairment or dementia, and social isolation and expands access to forensic accountants, geriatric psychiatrists/mental health professionals, and civil legal services, Cuomo said.

Developed by the State Office for the Aging and the state's Office of Victim Services, the program currently serves 51 counties covering 92 percent of older adults, making New York's program the first of its kind in the nation and tripling the number of teams targeting elder abuse, a release said.

"In New York, we believe in standing up for the fair and equal treatment of all of our citizens and protecting our most vulnerable populations, including the elderly," Cuomo said. 

The initial three-year investment that launched the E-MDT initiative in 2017 totaled $8.4 million; the investment consisted of federal Victims of Crime Act funds provided by the Office of Victim Services combined with a state investment provided by the New York State Office for the Aging. NYSOFA partnered with Lifespan of Greater Rochester, based in Monroe County, and Weill Cornell Medicine's New York City Elder Abuse Center to manage, monitor, and distribute the funding, Cuomo said.

Since 2017, E-MDT coordinators have received approximately 1,600 referrals and 670 victims have received advocacy services; in that same time period, E-MDT interventions resulted in approximately $645,000 in restitution being ordered by the courts for victims of financial exploitation cases, Cuomo said.

OVS Director Elizabeth Cronin reflected: "The isolation that is a reality for many elderly citizens creates conditions that make them especially vulnerable to exploitation and less likely to report when they are victims of crime."

Crime victims who were 60 or older filed a total of 5,673 claims for assistance between January 2018 and December 2020, and 3,789 were approved by OVS during that time, a release said.

Statistics show that one in 10 people older than 65 fall victim to some form of elder abuse each year, Cuomo said. New York State's committee for the coordination of police services to elderly persons, which is supported by staff from the state's division of criminal justice services, assists law enforcement agencies and programs by providing training and tools so they can better serve New York's older population.

Training covers topics including strategies to use when responding to calls for people with Alzheimer's and dementia and how advocates, service providers, and adult protective services professionals can collaborate with law enforcement on elder abuse cases. The committee also developed an elder abuse toolkit outlining various forms of elder abuse; investigative checklists; training documents, videos and online courses; New York State specific statutes related to elder abuse; and informational brochures.

In addition, the state said, OVS provides a "safety net" for crime victims and their family members, compensating eligible individuals for medical and counseling expenses, funeral and burial expenses, lost wages and support, in addition to other assistance. For additional information, click here.

 

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$2.5M Expansion Of Program To Fight Elderly Abuse: Cuomo

Why did Governor Cuomo give nursing homes immunity from Covid deaths?

by Ron Kim

Was the corporate immunity linked to $1.5m in political contributions from lobbyists? Only a full investigation can help us find out

Imagine fielding hundreds of calls from worried constituents at the peak of the first Covid-19 wave, trying to help scared families protect loved ones in nursing homes.

Imagine being stonewalled by those nursing homes and the department of health as you sought answers to life-and-death questions, knowing that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s directive forced these unprepared facilities to take in thousands of Covid-positive patients.

This was what I was going through as a New York state assemblyman when I received a call from a New York Times reporter about a corporate legal immunity provision that gave for-profit nursing homes and hospitals get-out-of-jail-free cards.

My heart sank as I read it. I did not need a PhD or law degree to understand the repercussions of handing out legal immunity to for-profit nursing homes, which now had legal and criminal shields to disincentivize them from saving lives.

Many of my colleagues had no idea the 2020 budget contained a legal shield that gave nursing home executives, trustees and board members blanket immunity. I voted against the budget bill, but if more members knew about the full implications of the legal immunity clause, there was no chance it would have passed.

So how and why did a blanket corporate immunity clause end up in the state budget?

In Albany and state capitals across the country, powerful governors routinely sneak toxic, corporate-friendly provisions into annual budget bills, hoping that lawmakers and the public are not paying attention. These are laws – like corporate legal immunity – that would never pass as stand-alone legislation.

The bigger question is why this provision was added in.

During the peak of the first wave, the Greater New York Hospital Association (GNYHA), a lobbying arm of hospitals and nursing home facilities, drafted immunity legislation and sent it to the governor’s office. On 3 April, they bragged in a post on its website (later taken down) that they had drafted and passed the “gold standard” of legal immunity for their members in New York’s 2020 budget.

At the time, New York’s nursing home fatalities were among the highest in the nation. As my office began investigating, what became certain was a clear connection between early blanket corporate immunity and higher rates of fatalities at nursing homes.

I felt as if I had to make this public: we believed in our data, compiled three reports and drafted a bill to fully repeal the corporate immunity law.

However, shortly after our reports were published, the governor’s administration changed how fatalities were being counted. Nursing home residents who died in hospitals were now attributed to the hospitals and not the nursing homes. As a result, New York’s nursing home deaths “decreased” and no longer seemed as awful compared with other states.

In August, at a joint oversight hearing, the president of GNYHA admitted they “lobbied extensively for the immunity law”, and that he was “proud to have done it and continue to do it right now in Washington as it relates to the federal level”.

There is a strong link between Governor Cuomo’s push for legal immunity and lobbyists like the Greater New York Hospital Association, which in one year gave him more than $1.5m in political contributions. There is more than a good chance that he continued to listen to these lobbyists after the budget – and the immunity clause – passed.

And there is a real possibility that lobbyists for hospital executives and for-profit nursing homes pushed the administration to suppress death numbers to defend their legal immunity.

Despite many pleas to disclose the full data, the governor and his administration purposefully suppressed this information until very recently, when the New York state attorney general reported an almost 50% underreporting in nursing home deaths.

For these reasons, we must thoroughly investigate why Governor Cuomo gave these for-profit facilities legal immunity, and who influenced him to suppress the nursing home death numbers.

• Ron Kim is in the New York state assembly representing the 40th district
  

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Why did Governor Cuomo give nursing homes immunity from Covid deaths?

Sen. Tedisco responds to news of FBI, U.S. Attorney investigation into nursing home deaths

NewsChannel 13 has confirmed the FBI and US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn have opened an investigation into the governor’s COVID-19 Task Force and its handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, as first reported by the Times Union. 

Sen. Jim Tedisco is responding to the news. He released the following statement:

“This was never about politics as some things, like the deaths of 15,000 nursing home residents, rise above politics. Given this federal investigation into the Cuomo Administration, the legislature should revoke the Governor’s emergency powers as there’s bi-partisan agreement among Democrats and Republicans who believe we should restore the legislature’s role as an equal branch of government. This must be the top legislative priority when we reconvene on Monday afternoon as Cuomo can no longer be trusted with his ‘Emperor-like’ powers.”  

“Once we take Cuomo’s powers away, the legislature should send our own subpoenas to the Administration to begin a state investigation of the nursing home cover-up or pass my legislation with Assemblyman Ron Kim for a bi-partisan, independent investigation of the nursing home scandal.”

 “If the facts demonstrate a cover-up and obstruction of justice, and they certainly seem to with the drip, drip, drip of new information revealed on a daily basis, then Governor Cuomo must resign or face impeachment and removal from office.”

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Sen. Tedisco responds to news of FBI, U.S. Attorney investigation into nursing home deaths

The Fallout for Cuomo Over Nursing Home Deaths

By Troy Closson

 

Johannes Eisele/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wrote a memoir on pandemic leadership last year. But questions around New York’s incomplete count of coronavirus-related deaths in nursing homes have undercut his national image.

Now, the Democratic leaders of the State Senate are in the final stages of crafting a bill that would strip him of emergency powers granted during the pandemic.

“I believe they should be taken away, hopefully sooner than later,” State Senator Gustavo Rivera said on Wednesday, adding that “we need to remind them that state government is not one big branch: There’s three of them.”

[Read more about the move by lawmakers.]

Here’s what you need to know:

The details

Nearly a year ago, Mr. Cuomo was granted far-reaching authority to supersede state laws to combat the pandemic. He has signed dozens of executive orders since then, mandating shutdowns and instituting quarantine requirements for travelers, among other actions.

The bill’s passage, which could occur as soon as next week, would limit those powers and would be a remarkable rebuke in the aftermath of Mr. Cuomo’s admission that he withheld nursing home data from the Legislature, according to my colleagues Jesse McKinley and Luis Ferré-Sadurní. It would also establish a 10-person commission to evaluate his future pandemic-related directives.

It remains unclear if the State Assembly would follow the Senate’s lead, and any bill passed would also need to be signed by the governor himself — though Democrats could override a veto with supermajorities in both chambers.

The governor also faces a federal inquiry by the F.B.I. and the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District over his handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.

The context

Critiques of the governor’s nursing home policies have been raised for months, and Mr. Cuomo had long dismissed them as partisan attacks. But on Wednesday, he lashed out at a critic from his own party, Assemblyman Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat who had said the governor had threatened him earlier.

After a report from the state attorney general and a court order, the official count of deaths of nursing home residents nearly doubled from about 8,500 to more than 15,000. Those who died in hospitals had not been initially included.

Mr. Cuomo’s top aide, Melissa DeRosa, also privately told some lawmakers last week that officials had withheld data because they worried about a possible Trump Justice Department investigation, sparking further allegations of a cover-up. The governor has since said that his administration’s lack of transparency was “a mistake,” but has stopped short of a full apology.

“That void of information caused the families who lost a loved one tremendous pain,” he said on Wednesday. “My administration created the void — and that I feel bad about. Not illegal, not unethical. But just failed people in that moment.”

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The Fallout for Cuomo Over Nursing Home Deaths

Pols push for independent probe of COVID-19 deaths in New York nursing homes

NYC EMTs move a patient from a Brooklyn nursing home into an ambulance in April. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Bernadette Hogan and Natalie Musumeci

Albany lawmakers are pushing for an independent, bi-partisan commission that would investigate the COVID-19 deaths of at least 6,447 New Yorkers in state-regulated nursing homes and what role Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s mandate that virus-ridden patients be taken into the facilities may have played.

The legislation, if passed, would establish a five-member commission to conduct an investigation with subpoena power and perform a top-to-bottom review of what happened in the state’s 613 nursing home facilities during the coronavirus pandemic.

The commission — which would purposely not include a Cuomo appointee — would probe the measures taken by nursing homes to ensure the safety of their residents during the crisis, the coronavirus-related death rates of residents in the facilities, and the effectiveness of state and federal laws, as well as “executive orders, rules, regulations and recommendations governing the response of nursing homes to COVID-19,” the bill says.

“We need closure — we need closure for the people who lost those family members, and they deserve the answers because there’s several disconnects that took place here,” state Sen. Jim Tedisco (R-Glenville), the chief sponsor of the bill, said at the state capitol in Albany Wednesday.

Tedisco pointed to Cuomo’s Health Department’s controversial March 25 mandate barring the facilities from turning away coronavirus-positive patients — and how a recent DOH report “absolved” the three-term Democratic governor when it claimed that the policy was not responsible for spreading infection and death among frail residents.

A patient is loaded into an ambulance outside Cobble Hill Health Center in Brooklyn at the height of the city’s COVID-19 pandemic.AP Photo/John Minchillo

The state order, which Cuomo has vehemently defended, has been blamed for fueling the nursing home death toll. The Cuomo administration in early May also stopped counting the deaths of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 in hospitals as nursing home deaths, raising more questions about the official death tally.

“They stopped counting individuals who left nursing homes, went to hospitals and died there. They don’t know when the peak was,” Tedisco said, explaining. “We don’t know how many left after the 25th [of March] to a hospital and died in a hospital.”

State Sen. Joe Griffo (R-Utica), another backer of the bill added, “The state can investigate bars and restaurants under this COVID-19 — how can we not investigate some of the nursing home conditions and the concerns that have been expressed by residents and families?”

Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), who lost an uncle in a New York nursing home to COVID-19, expressed his support for the bill as he ripped for Cuomo for penning an upcoming book on how the governor led New York through the coronavirus pandemic.

“In general,” Kim said, whenever Cuomo’s Health Commissioner Howard Zucker “was confronted with a tough question, he responded by saying, ‘We’re still in the middle of a pandemic, we’re still dealing with this,’ and yet the governor is writing a book and taking multiple victory laps around this issue.”

Kim, a co-sponsor of the bill, continued, “So there’s a clear disconnect, and I think they’re making excuses that we’re still in a challenging time when they don’t wanna’ answer questions and they don’t want to investigate.”

Assemblyman Ron Kim
Bernadette Hogan/NYPost

Rich Azzopardi, a Cuomo spokesman, argued that the two legislative hearings specific to long term care held several weeks ago were sufficient.

“Though it’s surreal to see Ron Kim repeat Trump’s discredited talking points, last time I checked the legislature was already looking at nursing homes, so what are we even talking about?” he bit back.

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Pols push for independent probe of COVID-19 deaths in New York nursing homes

Janice Dean finally testifies on NY nursing home deaths, demands full investigation 'with subpoena power'

By Talia Kaplan

Janice Dean opens up about loss of in-laws to COVID-19

Janice Dean speaks out speaks out on New York's nursing home deaths during the coronavirus pandemic.

Fox News senior meteorologist Janice Dean, who recently lost her elderly in-laws to COVID-19, finally got to testify before New York State lawmakers on nursing home deaths on Monday after she was denied the opportunity the week before. 

Dean told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is not providing the exact numbers of those who died from COVID-19 in adult care facilities because “New York state does not count the numbers that we lost in hospitals from nursing homes.”

“We need those numbers to move forward and help change the laws,” Dean said. “We need an independent bipartisan investigation that involves subpoena power so we can get the health commissioner on the hot seat and ask questions and get truthful answers.”

Last week, Dean found out that she was taken off the list to testify at a hearing geared toward understanding why and how the pandemic took root in New York nursing homes.

She said New York State Sen. Thomas O'Mara, a Republican, had admitted to her "that they [the Senate Majority] were uncomfortable having [her] as a witness," so they took her off the list. Speaking on the “Brian Kilmeade Show” last week, Dean said she believed Cuomo or his administration were behind the decision.

In a statement sent to Fox News last week, Rich Azzopardi, senior adviser to Gov. Cuomo, said that the legislature is “a separate branch of government and they run their hearings how they see fit."

On Monday, New York Senate Republicans held a forum where Dean’s voice was heard.

“My family's story is not based on politics as some might have you believe,” Dean said during her testimony on Monday. “And apparently my appearance here today makes some people uncomfortable, but I don't think it's me they’re uncomfortable with, it's the cover-up and the truth that happened in New York nursing homes.”

Dean said her father-in-law, who was in a nursing home and rehabilitation center, died the same day she and her husband found out he was sick and that they didn’t know he had contracted the novel coronavirus until they saw his death certificate.

Dean also said that her husband’s mother contracted COVID-19 in her assisted living facility. She was transported to the hospital and died in the hospital. Dean’s mother-in-law died on April 14, about two weeks after her father-in-law passed away from the novel coronavirus.

Dean joins many New Yorkers whose loved ones have died at nursing homes amid the pandemic. They have been calling for an independent investigation into whether nursing homes kept coronavirus patients separated, had enough employees, tracked workers who worked at multiple health care facilities and provided staffers with adequate protective gear.

New York state lawmakers grilled State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker earlier this month about the steep, though ultimately unknown, death toll at nursing homes in the state amid the pandemic.

Members of the Democratic-led legislature have been holding hearings geared at understanding why and how the pandemic took root in New York nursing homes after the state Department of Health reported nearly 6,600 residents, who had or likely had COVID-19, died at nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

The state hasn’t disclosed how many nursing home residents died at hospitals or how many have been infected with COVID-19.

During the hearing, Zucker defended the administration’s response and declined to provide key data points sought by Democrats and Republicans, including a rough estimate of how many nursing home residents have died in hospitals because of the novel coronavirus. Zucker cited worry that those numbers could include double-counts of deaths.

“We don't know the full numbers,” Dean said on Tuesday. “Cuomo and his health commissioner have been asked time and time again to give us the actual total deaths that happened, not only in nursing homes, but from seniors that were transported to hospitals and died in hospitals even though they got COVID-19 in their respective elder care facilities.”


Cuomo has received scathing criticism for his early order requiring that nursing homes accept COVID-19 patients who had been released from hospitals, effectively placing them in the same facilities housing the demographic most vulnerable to the virus.

Cuomo has insisted that New York’s original nursing home policy was in line with a March 13 directive from the Trump administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that went out to all states on how to control nursing homes.

New York, among other states, said at the time that nursing homes cannot refuse to take patients from hospitals solely because they have the coronavirus. After mounting criticism that the policy put the most vulnerable people at risk and contributed to a high number of fatalities, New York reversed course on May 10. Now hospitals can only send patients who have tested negative for COVID-19 to nursing homes.

Cuomo and his administration have been tight-lipped about the extent of deaths and infections at the state’s more than 600 nursing homes since March and Cuomo declined to admit any missteps.

Dean said Cuomo “hasn't answered the question about his mandate [on] March 25th that went for 46 days straight to bring COVID-positive patients into nursing homes.”

“He’s dodged the question, he’s blamed everybody else except the person that signed the mandate, Gov. Andrew Cuomo,” she continued.

Cuomo’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Dean said she will be traveling to Albany, N.Y. on Wednesday to meet with New York Sen. James Tedisco, a Republican, and Majority Democratic Assembly Member Ron Kim, who lost an uncle in a New York nursing home to COVID-19, to request a bipartisan investigation.

The group, which includes other legislators from both sides of the political aisle, will call for the passage of legislation for an independent, bipartisan state commission to “fully investigate the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers who died from COVID-19 in state-regulated nursing homes,” according to a news release.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Janice Dean finally testifies on NY nursing home deaths, demands full investigation 'with subpoena power'

5,000 nursing home investigations delayed, thanks to Covid-19

by Lou Michel

Leona Post at Absolut Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation at Aurora Park on April 20, 2020. Family members says she is missing her dentures and eyeglasses.
Photo courtesy of Michele Vaillancourt

The New York State Health Department has a backlog of nearly 5,000 unresolved complaints filed against nursing homes during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Citing privacy laws, the Health Department refuses to shed any further light on those complaints other than to say they are pending and under review. 

While fighting the virus that killed more than 6,300 nursing home residents, the Health Department gave top priority to investigating complaints of infection control and immediate jeopardy. Other complaints – including at least one about a local fatality – have not received the same attention.

“Amidst one of the worst pandemics in history, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mandate all state agencies nationwide only conduct focused infection control and immediate jeopardy surveys,” said Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the Health Department.

Since March 1, 4,927 complaints were filed against nursing homes and 965 of them involve facilities in the 17 most western counties of the state, including Erie and Niagara.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on March 23 suspended all other types of inspections to allow states to concentrate on halting the spread of the new coronavirus amid the country’s frail nursing home population. On June 1, the agency issued a memo providing guidance to resume enforcement of other regulations governing nursing homes.

"Due to the risk the Covid-19 poses to the health and safety of nursing home residents, our primary focus remains on ensuring facilities are prepared to prevent its spread. However, we are also concerned about nursing homes’ compliance with other federal requirements. Therefore, we are prompting states to begin to survey for compliance with these requirements," the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said in a statement to The Buffalo News.

Among those who have had to wait months for a complaint to be addressed are the daughters of 83-year-old Leona Post, who died May 1. Her children complained Post did not receive enough assistance in eating while in an East Aurora nursing home. They say Post’s eyeglasses and dentures were also lost at the facility, making it all the more difficult for their mother to eat, according to the complaint.

An official at Absolut Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation at Aurora Park said Post died May 1 because of ailments that made her vulnerable to Covid-19.

Jason Newman, an Absolut spokesman, said an on-site state Health Department inspection Wednesday "found no wrongdoing whatsover" in the treatment of Post. He said the Health Department has not provided the nursing home with that determination in writing.

Hammond said there was no information publicly available Thursday when asked by The Buffalo News if the Health Department had determined the complaint was unfounded.

Post’s daughters filed their complaint May 6 with the Health Department seeking an investigation into the care given to their mother at the nursing home. Michele Vaillancourt, her mother's health proxy, said Thursday they still had not heard back from the Health Department on any findings.

Since March 1, state Health Department inspectors have conducted more than 1,300 on-site “infection control Covid-19 focus inspections,” at the state’s 613 nursing homes and 544 adult care facilities, according to Hammond. Those inspections included 143 at Western New York nursing homes.

When pressed on the status of the 965 complaints, Hammond said the ones involving infection control and immediate jeopardy were investigated. As to the overall status of the complaints and whether any were resolved, Hammond said, "The 965 complaints remain under review. All complaints are kept confidential and privacy laws prohibit the department from discussing an individual’s medical history."

In further explaining the Health Department's position, he said, "It’s important to note annually DOH receives more than 15,000 nursing home complaints statewide."

Advocates: State should investigate complaints

Advocates for nursing home residents believe the state has a backlog of complaints that are not directly related to the pandemic. Delays in investigating those complaints, now that the deadly wave of deaths in New York nursing homes has subsided, is doing a disservice to residents, according to the advocates.

“Nursing home residents have suffered for months under an inhumane, untenable lockdown that has separated them from their families and friends and any chance of monitoring or enforcement of even the most basic, essential care standards,” said Richard Mollot, director of the Long Term Care Community Coalition in New York City.

On March 13, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo ordered a ban on visits to nursing homes in response to the highly contagious coronavirus. But Wednesday, limited visiting resumed at some long-term care facilities that filed visitation plans with the Health Department.

An official at the Empire Center, an independent nonpartisan think tank and watchdog group in Albany, said it is understandable that the government focused on the most serious complaints when the pandemic struck, but that other complaints should not be put aside.

“In a crisis, you would focus on the most urgent complaints as a kind of triage. At the same time, because there are no visitors and the access of ombudsmen have been restricted, the role of inspections becomes that much more important,” said Bill Hammond, health policy director at the Empire Center.

The limited visiting also allows for ombudsman visits.

“So as soon as possible, after the crisis has passed, you would want to redouble inspections and look at all kinds of complaints,” said Bill Hammond, who is not related to Jeffrey Hammond.

Lisa Newman, local program director of the state’s Long Term Care Ombudsman Program, said the ban made it “challenging” to follow up on concerns expressed by nursing home residents and their family members.

“We’re not able to have eyes on the situation and verify what is happening in the nursing home,” Newman said. “We have reached out to our volunteers at specific nursing homes to make sure they have contact with a staff social worker or administrator in order to resolve concerns.”

Even before the pandemic, the Health Department was already backlogged with complaints against nursing homes and questions regarding the department’s ability to enforce corrections for cited violations, according to Lindsay Heckler, supervising attorney at the Center for Elder Law & Justice in Buffalo.

“The State Legislature had concerns about the DOH’s ability to enforce the regulations which is why they passed legislation that established an independent quality monitor of the written corrective action plans,” Heckler said.

The bill was signed into law by the governor last December.

Heckler said she realizes the state Health Department is “overwhelmed at the moment and likely under-resourced and short staffed,” but that steps need to be taken to resume investigations into all complaints.

Complaint against Absolut 

Vaillancourt, one of Post's daughters, said a Health Department investigator promised Tuesday to get back to her within 10 days about the complaint against Absolut at Aurora Park.

Newman, the Absolut spokesman, said Post’s eyeglasses were found and returned to the family, but her dentures remain missing. Nursing home documents on Post’s care, he said, prove she continued to receive “food and nourishment leading up to her Covid diagnosis.”

Post, who had a number of medical conditions, including dementia and diabetes, died May 1 at Buffalo General Medical Center, five days after she was transferred there from Absolut at Aurora Park.
 

Leona Post at the Eden Heights
assisted living facility the day
before she was moved to
Absolut Center for Nursing
& Rehabilitation at Aurora
Park on March 11, 2020.
Photo courtesy of
Michele Vaillancourt

Absolut records indicate Post weighed 155 pounds when she became a resident on March 11, according to documents provided by Post’s relatives and the nursing home. She was moved to Buffalo General on April 26, three days after she tested positive for Covid-19. Her weight upon admission to the hospital was 110 pounds, according to hospital records.

That would mean she lost 45 pounds in 46 days at the nursing home.

But Newman said another record indicates Post lost less weight.

Post weighed 138 pounds on Feb. 27, according to a record the family obtained this week from Eden Heights, the assisted living facility where Post resided at the time, Vaillancourt said.The daughter added that she remains concerned about her mother's weight loss.

The main purpose of the complaint, Vaillancourt said, is for the state to determine if her mother received adequate assistance in eating her meals.

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5,000 nursing home investigations delayed, thanks to Covid-19