More On:

nursing homes

Families of nursing home victims demand probe of ‘killer’ Cuomo

‘Everything is political’: Cuomo skirts stunning cover-up admission on nursing home deaths

Gov. Cuomo exposed my late mom to COVID-19 — and then tried to cover it up

NY pols should cancel break, strip Cuomo of emergency powers: GOP leader

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s cover-up of nursing home deaths from COVID-19 hid nearly 1,900 fatalities in New York City alone — with new figures sending the tally at one Queens facility skyrocketing more than 1,000 percent.

A Post analysis of the latest state Health Department data shows that 5,443 nursing home residents have been killed by the coronavirus in the Big Apple.

That statistic includes 1,885 seniors who died in hospitals and weren’t included in the official DOH count of nursing home deaths until the Cuomo administration finally began releasing their numbers, under duress, in the wake of a damning report last month from state Attorney General Letitia James.

In New York City, the new figures push the total nursing home death count up by 53 percent, according to the analysis of DOH data current as of Saturday.

That’s just shy of the 56 percent undercount that James estimated in her report.

The Post analysis also revealed that nearly all of the 162 city nursing homes that reported COVID-19 deaths inside their walls — 152 — had residents die after being sent to hospitals for treatment.

They include the Park Terrace Care Center in Corona, where only three residents were actually killed by the virus at the facility.

But another 31 residents died at hospitals, pushing the true death toll there to 34 — a staggering, 1,033 percent increase.

A Queens resident whose 72-year-old mother lives at Park Terrace was outraged to learn of the numbers, calling them “appalling” and saying he’d thought that “maybe a handful of residents” had died.

“I wasn’t aware that 34 people in this facility passed,” said Anthony, 40, who was dropping off a bag of clean clothes for his mom.

“There’s so much that we don’t know.”

Asked what he thought of Cuomo, Anthony said, “He misled the nation and family members.”

Two staffers also said they were unaware so many residents had died, with one saying, “It’s kind of shocking.”

The other said, “I just think that’s crazy. I guess steps wasn’t getting done.”

Close behind Park Terrace — with a 1,000 percent increase in its death toll — is the Rockaway Care Center in Queens.

It had also had three residents died behind its doors, but 30 more die in hospitals.

The Jamaica Hospital Center, also in Queens, had only four residents die there but 34 in hospitals.

The Post exclusively revealed last week that Cuomo’s top aide, Secretary to the Governor Melissa DeRosa, privately told Democratic lawmakers that his administration withheld data on the hospital deaths from them in August due to a pending probe by federal prosecutors.

“Because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us,” she said during the Wednesday night video conference call.

Last month, Cuomo also sparked outrage by dismissing the importance of where the deaths took place, saying, “But who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died.”

The city nursing home with the single largest number of residents who died in hospitals is Manhattan’s Upper East Side Rehabilitation and Nursing Center which has 52, nearly twice the 29 who died at the facility.

The Sheepshead Nursing & Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn has had 51 residents die in hospitals, compared to just nine at the nursing home.

At Brooklyn’s Boro Park Center for Rehabilitation and Healthcare, there have been 42 residents who died in hospitals, comprising more than half its 74 fatalities.

Statewide, the total number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19 stood at 13,407 as of Saturday.

That figure included 4,181 who died in hospitals and increased the number who died in nursing homes by 45 percent.

Cuomo’s office didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Share this article:

Source: Read Full Article