Michigan Governor Whitmer Supports COVID Nursing Home Policy Amid Threats of Lawsuit

LANSING, Mich. – Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has come under fire for a retirement home policy her administration put in place at the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Initially, patients who tested positive for COVID were placed in the same facility as patients who did not have COVID. Whitmer ended this practice after the first six months of the pandemic.

There is a growing scrutiny of politics with the prospect of lawsuits and other lawsuits. Whitmer said she remains proud of her team’s overall response to the coronavirus.

READ: Michigan AG Examines Inquiries into Nursing Home Policy

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Whitmer’s policy was different from that of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, as Whitmer did not force COVID-positive patients to reside with COVID-negative patients. Instead, Whitmer instigated the process by paying the homes to take in patients who had contracted COVID-19.

The most recent tally puts the number of long-term care deaths at 5,537 in Michigan, representing more than 35% of all COVID deaths in the state.

When Cuomo came under fire for allegedly underreporting the number of elderly people sent from nursing homes who died in hospitals, Local 4 filed an Freedom of Information request to examine the numbers from the Michigan. There are not any.

READDaughter shares struggle she faced while elderly mother was in healthcare facility during COVID-19 pandemic

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The request was returned with a denial of data, saying: “There is no record of the place of death collected.”

“I am proud of the work we have accomplished. We can analyze different angles of statistics and compare ourselves with other states, but … I think that can sometimes be a crazy task because the way we collect data varies from state to state, ” Whitmer said. “When there’s never a national strategy, (it’s) hard to really compare apples to apples.”

Macomb County District Attorney Peter Lucido is expected to announce an effort to sue Whitmer over his nursing home policy.

The Department of Health and Human Services sent an update indicating that nursing home patients transferred to hospital and then deceased would be counted as one death in a nursing home – if they had not been released from the care facility.

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READ: Coronavirus death toll in neighboring Detroit metro area care facilities could be worse in the United States

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Last year, a report found that Michigan’s plan to create “centers” for nursing home residents with COVID-19 was “logical and appropriate” and found no significant evidence of transmission. virus between patients and residents.

The report, released by the Center for Health Transformation and Research (CHRT), assessed the state’s regional nursing home hub strategy, comparing the approach to results in other states. CHRT is a non-profit organization affiliated with the University of Michigan.

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