He’ll lead Senate’s pandemic investigations
Senator James Skoufis predicts it will be an objective look at the last five months. Starting next week, his investigation committee will conduct hearings on the response to the pandemic in nursing homes and hospitals. The group will also examine workforce issues, including delays in receiving protective equipment and unemployment insurance.
Soon after the onset of the pandemic, the senator had cited the need for an investigation to Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins. They had agreed not to schedule hearings until after the state’s COVID-19 numbers had declined. While the pandemic raged, neither senator wanted to distract healthcare officials from their primary responsibility.
In the meantime, the committee began its own investigation, and sent out invitations for people to testify. The list includes high-level officials from the governor’s office in addition to emergency room workers, doctors and victims of the disease or their relatives.
The schedule for hearings is: Monday, Aug. 3 – Upstate nursing homes; Monday, Aug. 10 – Downstate nursing homes; Wednesday, Aug. 12 – Hospitals; Thursday, Aug. 13 – Workforce.
Sen. Skoufis expects the nursing home hearings to extend into the evening. The other hearings are likely to last a few hours. The Senator’s office will provide members of the public with a Zoom link so they can watch the meetings.
“We’ve sent out dozens of requests,” Mr. Skoufis said on July 27, “and we expect full participation.
“We’re not finger-pointing and we’re not casting blame. We want to learn the best practices and determine what went wrong. The goal is to figure out what legislation we should pass to protect New York in the future.”
The governor’s office compiled its own report and concluded that employees, who showed no symptoms of the disease, carried the virus into nursing homes.
As a result, thousands of elderly patients died.
“We’re going to ask tough questions about their report,” Sen. Skoufis predicted. “We expect top people from the governor’s office, and so far they have been fully cooperative.”
The Skoufis committee will not be working alone. The Health and Aging Committees will join the nursing home discussion. And the Labor and Banks Committees will sit in on the workforce hearing.
“We expect everyone to check their politics at the door,” the senator told us. “It won’t be an opportunity to score political points.”
Mr. Skoufis, now a resident of Cornwall, was sidelined for 12 days with the disease. His wife, Hillary, tested positive for COVID-19 but experienced no symptoms. “It’s foolhardy for young people not to take this seriously,” the senator (age 32) cautioned. “You do see young people die and they have a higher rate of strokes than the rest of the population. We’re still learning about the virus.”
After the last hearing, Sen. Skoufis and his committee will report to the Senate. A copy of their findings will be released to the public.
