Senate Republicans Reject Funding for Independent Review of NH Veterans Home and Nursing Homes After
Contact Name: Marina Altschiller
Phone: (603) 271-3207
Senate Republicans Reject Funding for Independent Review of NH Veterans Home and Nursing Homes After 20% of Residents Die
CONCORD - Today, Senate Republicans rejected an amendment from the Senate Democratic caucus to appropriate $250,000 in federal relief funds to the Department of Health and Human Services for the purposes of hiring an independent consultant to evaluate the COVID-19 related deaths in these facilities, which saw the highest fatality rate among residents during this pandemic than any other such institutions in the country.
After the vote, Deputy Senate Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald issued the following statement:
“The pandemic’s worst devastation has been in our long-term care facilities and our state Veterans Home. Unfortunately, for all the Department’s hard work and good faith efforts, New Hampshire has the highest long-term care death rate in the country, with around 800 individuals losing their lives, accounting for about 75 to 80% of our state’s deaths. While the Veterans Home managed to keep the pandemic at bay for months, they ultimately lost nearly 20% of their residents to COVID-19 in just two months. As the Department itself has stated, we still don’t know why this happened or how we could do better to prevent this kind of tragedy in the future. This small appropriation of federal funds would have allowed the Department to determine what happened and how we could have done better in the future.
I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that HB 2 was amended by Senate Finance to appropriate more than $3 million in state funds to fix two miles of the very road that leads to the Veterans Home. Evidently my colleagues care more about the road leading to the Veterans Home than they care about the folks who live at the end of the road, who so selflessly served our country. I am deeply disappointed that my Republican colleagues voted to let these individuals down today.”
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