It was a year ago that New York state Attorney General Letitia James’ office released a bombshell report: State health officials had undercounted the number of nursing home residents who died of COVID-19. On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt says not enough has been done for the family members of victims. 

“Those families never received an apology,” Ortt said. “No one’s ever been held accountable.”

Republicans in the state Senate want an audit of the Department of Health’s past pandemic policies for nursing homes — policies that included requiring nursing homes to not turn away COVID-positive patients. 

“This is not about going back, this is about going forward, because we’ve heard it before: if you don’t look at history, you’re destined to repeat it,” said state Sen. Jim Tedisco, a Republican who represents the Capital Region. 

Tedisco is also calling for a day of commemoration for people in nursing homes who have died during the pandemic. Taken together, some solace could be offered to victims families.  

“They can’t just accept a fact that people who were in a place who were supposed to be cared for, their well being was supposed to be respected, their health care was supposed to be at the top level, might have been impacted by some of the decisions by the very department that was supposed to protect their well being,” Tedisco said. 

When Gov. Kathy Hochul took office, she moved to put more transparency measures in place when it comes to COVID-19 fatality reporting.

Department of Health spokesman Jeffrey Hammond in a statement pointed to efforts meant to guard against the spread of the COVID innursing homes, including guidance updates on visitations and vaccination and booster campaigns.  

“While the New York State Department of Health does not comment on proposed legislation, we are committed to protecting nursing home residents during this pandemic which includes supporting the vaccination and booster doses for residents and staff, ensuring facilities adhere to strong infection control measures and issuing guidance on nursing home visitation,” he said. “These steps are working, as evidenced by the decrease is cases among nursing home residents.”

It’s now estimated 15,000 people who were nursing home residents during the early months of the pandemic died due to COVID or COVID-related complications. 

“You have COVID in our most vulnerable population — how do you allow that to happen?” said Sen. Sue Serino. 

The proposals also come as the state’s nursing home reporting policies as of last summer was being investigated by the federal government. Both a state-level review and the federal government’s probe can be conducted at the same time, Serino said. 

“I think they can go side by side,” Serino said. “I think the residents of New York state deserve for the state to step up and do the right thing.”