Executives from nursing homes were “petrified” by Governor Cuomo’s order a year ago to send elderly patients to long-term care facilities instead of hospitals during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new interview.
Michael Kraus, administrator of a nursing home on Staten Island, said his concerns were “allayed” by state officials.
“Many installations have vocalized,” Kraus said in an interview with Fox News scheduled to air on Thursday. “They were petrified, but they were more petrified by the Department of Health … since [my concern] was shot down, I never spoke [about it] again.”
The Cuomo government is facing a federal investigation for spoiling the response to the health crisis in nursing homes – and then covering up the real death toll.
Last month, the state Department of Health admitted that more than 15,000 residents of nursing homes and long-term care homes died of COVID-10 in the state – almost double the nearly 8,700 deaths that state officials initially declared.
Last month, The Post reported exclusively that one of Cuomo’s top advisers, Melissa DeRosa, told Democratic leaders in a video conference that we “froze” for fear that the real numbers would be “used against us” by federal prosecutors .
Cuomo’s top advisers also successfully lobbied state officials to omit the death toll in nursing homes who died in COVID-19 hospitals – distorting the grand total.
The Cuomo nursing home scandal is being investigated by the FBI and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn.
His March 25, 2020 order was terminated two months later.
Cuomo played down the disaster and refused to apologize for the mishandling.
“Who cares [if they] died in the hospital, died in a nursing home? They died, ”he said at a news conference in January.