Michigan Sen. Peter Lucido (R-Shelby Township) | Lucido's website
Michigan Sen. Peter Lucido (R-Shelby Township) | Lucido's website
Sen. Peter Lucido (R-Shelby Township) voiced his opposition to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent executive order stating hospital patients with COVID-19 can only be discharged to nursing homes where they can be isolated.
“Simply being able to isolate a COVID-19 patient is not enough to treat or protect the remaining vulnerable population at these facilities, or their caregivers,” Lucido said in a May 21 release. “Nursing homes are not hospitals. They’re not equipped to administer the type of care that hospitals provide. They don’t have the personnel, personal protective equipment, medications or sophisticated physical properties, like HVAC systems, to do the job of a hospital.”
Under the executive order, which was issued May 20, nursing homes are required to create and maintain dedicated isolation units to care for residents with the coronavirus but only if the nursing homes can implement effective and reliable infection control procedures. A previous executive order mandated nursing homes with less than 80% capacity to create these units.
Sen. Peter Lucido
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“Nothing about the decision to put COVID-19 patients in nursing homes has made sense,” Lucido said in the post. “Despite the administration’s claims that every decision they make in response to this virus is based on science and data, they have routinely balked when asked for that data or for an explanation as to why the order was given.”
Among the information that hasn’t been released, following the decision to put coronavirus patients in nursing homes, is the number of nursing home residents and workers that have died, the number of workers that got sick, and how many people recovered.
Lucido is requesting the attorney general and U.S. attorney to launch investigations into each of the executive orders.
“At a time when, literally, lives are on the line, when we need clarity, transparency and reasoning from our governor about these decisions that are affecting so many families, we so far haven’t gotten them,” Lucido said in the release.
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