NYC nursing home’s huge coronavirus deaths don’t match state reports

The state is seeking to account for as many as 98 residents of the Isabella Geriatric Center in Washington Heights who have reportedly died of COVID-19,  officials said Saturday.
The state lists only 13 deaths at the facility.
“We are working to verify all the information reported to us” at Isabella and all 613 nursing homes and 544 adult-care facilities, said Gary Holmes, a state Health Department spokesman.
Officials could not say whether Isabella deliberately misled the state. The facility insists it reported all deaths.
Gov. Cuomo Friday had harsh words for nursing homes, saying they submit numbers “under penalty of perjury.”
“You violate, you commit fraud, that is a criminal offense, period. So they can be prosecuted criminally for fraud on any of these reporting numbers,” he said.

On Saturday, a state Department of Heath website listed 13 deaths of Isabella residents as of May 1 despite news reports that nearly 100 facility residents had died.
The nursing home has acknowledged 60 confirmed and suspected COVID-19 deaths at the massive, 705-bed facility, plus 38 others who died of confirmed or suspected cases in the hospital.
Snafus in the state monitoring system are widespread, The Post found.
At the sprawling Hebrew Home in Riverdale, 25 residents have died of suspected or confirmed cases of the coronavirus since March 1, a spokeswoman said, but the state still lists the number at  zero.
The largest private nursing home in the state with 751 beds, Hebrew Home says half of the 14 patients who died in its beds were confirmed COVID-19 cases and half were presumed to have it. And another 11 of its residents died of the bug after being transported to hospitals.
“The Hebrew Home has been and continues to be fully transparent in its reporting of deaths due to covid,” spokeswoman Wendy Steinberg said.
The state website also lists the wrong name of a nursing home run by city Health + Hospitals.
An Isabella spokesperson declined to comment Saturday, but said last week, “From the beginning of this pandemic, Isabella has reported truthful and accurate data requested by the Department of Health. We have shared daily the number of confirmed and presumed positive cases at both the residence and hospital, including deaths.”
The state in the past had cited Isabella, and other nursing homes, for letting oxygen tubes connected to patients sit on the floor.
State health official Holmes said the agency is trying to “determine whether [the] facility is under reporting. We have not found that yet.
“We went back and asked every nursing home to provide all COVID-19 deaths, both confirmed and unconfirmed,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2020/05/02/nyc-nursing-homes-staggering-coronavirus-deaths-dont-match-state-reports/