Medical workers put on personal protective equipment outside the Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation Center. | Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/Getty Images
New Jersey lawmakers are ramping up efforts to investigate the state’s oversight of the long-term care industry.
On Wednesday, shortly before Gov. Phil Murphy announced the number of Covid-19 deaths linked to outbreaks at long-term care facilities had surpassed 5,000, Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Chairman Joe Vitale said he would hold hearings to investigate “the breakdowns in oversight” and resource constraints that allowed coronavirus to tear through the state’s nursing homes, post-acute care centers and other LTCs.
Advertisement
“There is no question that this disease inherently poses a greater threat to the elderly and the sick,” Vitale (D-Middlesex) said in a statement. “But the devastating reports coming out of these communities begs a number of questions that the families with members in these facilities deserve to have addressed in public.”
Vitale’s committee is expected to invite testimony from state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli, Human Services Commissioner Carole Johnson, representatives from long-term care facilities, retired Army Brig. Gen. Mark Piterski, the former deputy commissioner of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, as well as his acting replacement, retired Army Col. Walter Nall.
Vitale said in his statement that he hoped to deliver recommendations to the governor that might “prevent anything like this in the future.”
Later Wednesday, Vitale said he would postpone the investigation until after consultants hired by the Murphy administration deliver their recommendations for future policies and protocols.
Murphy declined to comment on Vitale’s committee when asked about it during his daily coronavirus press briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Also Wednesday, the upper house’s Republican caucus sent a letter to Senate President Steve Sweeney calling for a select committee to investigate the administration’s response to Covid-19, citing reports of neglect and mismanagement within long-term care facilities, the state Department of Corrections and the persistent backlog of unemployment claims being processed by the state Department of Labor.
The letter, signed by all 15 Senate Republicans, called on Sweeney to examine whether the pandemic’s damage “may have been amplified by the response of the executive branch of our State government in certain cases, resulting in unnecessary physical and economic harm to New Jerseyans.”
Sweeney’s office declined to comment.
Outbreaks at long-term care facilities account for a little less than 20 percent of the 141,000-plus known coronavirus cases New Jersey had reported as of Wednesday afternoon. However, deaths linked to outbreaks at 522 facilities across the state represent more than half of the 9,700 Covid-19 fatalities state officials have reported thus far.
Reports from many of those facilities have been graphic, with stories of insufficient personal protective equipment and shoddy infection control protocols contributing to rising body counts. The severity of the crisis was thrown into stark relief last month after a makeshift morgue was discovered at Andover Subacute and Rehabilitation II in Sussex County.
Murphy deployed members of the New Jersey National Guard for nonclinical duties at Andover. The Guard is also present at New Jersey’s state-run veterans' homes, where more than 100 residents have died of Covid-19.
Last week, Murphy said the state would hire former Obama administration official Cindy Mann and Carol Raphael, the former CEO and president of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York and erstwhile AARP board chair, to work with the state Department of Health to develop better protocols to protect long-term care facility residents and staff through the remainder of the pandemic.
State Attorney General Gurbir Grewal widened his investigation of the state’s long-term care industry last week, setting up an online portal for residents to anonymously report misconduct.
Persichilli on Tuesday said the state would require facilities to develop outbreak plans with provisions for coronavirus testing of staff and residents. The state also rolled out a plan — an expansion of a pilot conducted in South Jersey facilities — to test every long-term care resident and staff member.
“The industry does not have it within themselves to make the changes they need. If they had, they would have done it already,” Murphy said at a press briefing last week. “I want to be definitive and unambiguous on that. And change will be coming.”
The Department of Corrections has faced problems as well, with some corrections officers saying they struggled to obtain coronavirus tests while working in an environment that’s not conducive to social distancing. In late April, Murphy announced the state would proceed with universal testing of DOC staff and inmates.
Additionally, the Murphy administration has faced intense criticism over the state’s lag in processing the more than 1 million coronavirus-related unemployment claims, by far the most claims the state, which relies on decades-old technology, has ever handled.
Growing scrutiny of the administration’s handling of Covid-19 arrives even as Murphy earns high marks from the public for his management of the crisis, which has strained the resources of virtually every branch of government.
A Rutgers-Eagleton poll of 1,502 New Jersey residents released last Wednesday found that 77 percent approve of Murphy’s performance as governor, compared with 21 percent who disapprove. A Quinnipiac University poll 941 New Jersey registered voters released the same pegged Murphy’s overall approval rating at 68 percent, with 78 percent approving his performance through the pandemic.
"term" - Google News
May 14, 2020 at 07:31AM
https://ift.tt/2WrObXY
New Jersey lawmakers plan hearings to examine 'breakdowns in oversight' in long-term care - POLITICO
"term" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35lXs52
https://ift.tt/2L1ho5r
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "New Jersey lawmakers plan hearings to examine 'breakdowns in oversight' in long-term care - POLITICO"
Post a Comment