New York State Senator Rachel May, chair of the Senate Committee on Aging, was a part of the Zoom call earlier this week between state senators and Secretary to the Governor, Melisa DeRosa.
May is quoted in the transcript of the call saying “the issue for me, the biggest of all, is feeling like I needed to defend or at least not attack an administration that was appearing to be covering something up.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo's office on Friday morning released a partial transcript of a meeting held earlier this week between state lawmakers and aides to the governor discussing the deaths of nursing home residents during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meeting, top Cuomo aide Melissa DeRosa told lawmakers the administration delayed releasing answers to questions posed by legislators that summer because of an inquiry by the Department of Justice.
For May, this was something she was aware of during the hearings over the summer.
"We knew that the Department of Health was reporting the numbers of people who died in nursing homes and not the nursing home residents taken to hospitals and died," May said. "I still don’t know why they insisted on that, but that’s been the crux of the issue all along.”
“I was trying very hard to not be bashing our public health officials in the middle of a pandemic and to be working behind the scenes through our letter, through our outreach directly,” said May.
May was one of three senators to lead the legislature’s hearings on COVID-19 and nursing homes this summer.
“What I was really most concerned of is I want the public to be able to trust our public health officials to be leveling with us," she said,. "At the federal level, that wasn’t happening. The Trump administration was not leveling with us and Cuomo sort of built his brand on leveling with us, but there was this one area where we knew that wasn’t happening."
2020, of course, was an election year for May and all other members of the state legislature. In an October debate on WRVO, Republican challenger Sam Rodgers criticized May, claiming she did not take enough action or answer enough questions during the hearing.
“And some of those families relied on data that the government was pushing out, that the government is provided, and when it turns out that the data was wrong, and maybe deceitfully wrong, that’s a really, really big deal,” said Rodgers.
On Friday, Rodgers suggested May’s motives are political.
“There was a legislative majority, there was my opponent, chair of the Aging Committee, commissioned to oversee nursing homes, to fight on those people’s behalf, who instead felt the political need to cover up for the executive, a different branch of the government,” said Rodgers.
The senator denies those claims. She also said she's not worried about how this is going to affect her politically.
"I mean, I’ve been standing up for public health and for seniors and I’m very proud of the legislation we are moving, and that’s my job as a legislator to do that. So no, I am totally proud of my job and have no trouble defending it," May said.
May specifically pointed to a series of bills that passed committee this week which include legislation aimed at regulating how nursing home deaths are reported.
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February 13, 2021 at 07:13AM
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Senator Rachel May Explains Leaked Nursing Home Death Call - Spectrum News
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