State health officials refuse to say whether they are investigating a Long Island nursing home that recorded just four deaths from COVID-19, while at the height of the pandemic, several more people died there.
The Post reported that 35 individuals died from all causes in the three-month period between March 1 and May 31, 2020 at the Grand Rehabilitation and Nursing at South Point in Island Park, compared to only three in the same period a year earlier.
To the Department of Health, Grand Rehabilitation had confirmed one COVID-19 death at the facility and three others at a hospital.
The Department of Health had told The Washington Post that it was “reviewing all data received,” but would not specify if it was looking into this nursing home directly for undercounting deaths.
COVID-19 was identified as a contributing factor or possible contributing factor on the death certificates of three people who died at the nursing home, according to a DOH spokesman. Still, the spokesman would not comment about whether any action against the home for underreporting the deaths would be taken.
The Cuomo administration has been caught up in a controversy about the accuracy of nursing home death counts that began last month when Attorney General Letitia James issued a study estimating that if it included residents who died in hospitals, the tally would rise by more than 50 percent.
Federal authorities then launched an investigation into the treatment of nursing homes by Gov. Cuomo during the pandemic, after The Post claimed that his administration withheld data from state lawmakers on the deaths.
