The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
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Paramus Nj, With the upcoming holiday season, the New Jersey Department of Health today issued health and safety guidance for the state’s long-term care facilities, which provides measures for residents who leave the facility for a holiday gathering, including a 14-day quarantine at the conclusion of their visit.
By Robert Auth
Assemblyman Robert Auth represents the 39th Legislative District, which includes part of Bergen and Passaic counties. He has been a member of the Assembly since 2014.
A respiratory virus tragically attacking New Jersey’s most vulnerable populations is nothing new. In fact, it’s a really bad case of déjà vu.
The pandemic scourge ravaging the state has a sad unpleasant precedent. More than a year prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an adenovirus swept through the Wanaque Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation killing 11 children and sickening 36 residents.
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Paramus NJ, last week it was announced that the US Department of Justice opened a formal investigation into Governor Murphy’s mishandling of the Covid crisis and his decision to send nearly 200 of our brave veterans to State run nursing homes to die.
Continue reading GOVERNOR MURPHY’S VETERANS HOMES SCANDAL ACCELERATES
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Trenton NJ, Senate Republicans launched an online petition to enlist the public’s support to convince legislative leaders to allow a special bipartisan committee with subpoena power to investigate the massive loss of life in New Jersey’s nursing homes, veterans homes, and long-term care (LTC) facilities due to COVID-19.
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Paramus NJ, , Senator Joe Pennacchio called the four nursing home bills signed Wednesday by Governor Murphy “a legislative distraction that fails to address the root causes of failings that accounted for more than 7,000 deaths in nursing homes.”
“The Governor continues to whitewash the systemic problems that plague facilities,” said Pennacchio. “State government policies led to the deaths of one of every 10 residents in nursing homes, and Murphy refuses to defend those decisions.”
Continue reading Governor Murphy Continues to Obscure Truth About Nursing Home Tragedies
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Trenton NJ, The Senate Republican caucus will continue its efforts to form a Senate select committee with subpoena power to investigate the massive loss of life and ensure the safety of vulnerable residents at New Jersey’s veterans homes, nursing homes, and long-term care facilities (LTCs).
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Trenton NJ, Senator Anthony M. Bucco, Senator Kristin Corrado, and Senator Joe Pennacchio said the Murphy Administration’s massive failures in protecting nursing homes, processing unemployment claims, and reopening Motor Vehicle Commission agencies must be investigated by the Legislature to ensure that fixes can be implemented as quickly as possible.
“It’s clear to everyone in New Jersey that the Murphy Administration has failed to properly protect nursing home residents, help unemployed workers, or plan for the MVC’s reopening,” said Bucco (R-25). “What’s not clear, however, is why the governor didn’t listen to the warnings raised by so many people or why he continues to refuse to enact the common-sense solutions we’ve proposed. It’s also not clear why Senate Democrats continue to delay the bipartisan investigation we were promised to help guide our efforts to fix lingering problems and prevent a recurrence of these critical failures.”
Continue reading Murphy’s Nursing Home, Unemployment & MVC Failures Must Be Probed by NJ Senate
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Ridgewood NJ,despite the recent coronavirus surge in southern states, three states—New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts—account for about 42 percent of COVID-19 deaths in America.
Nearly 7,000 residents and staff of long-term care facilities, including nursing and veterans homes, died from COVID-19 after the Murphy Administration issued directives that may have prevented their ability to keep infected patients from being admitted.
“Is it the case that some New Jerseyans wished to see our population decrease, starting with the old, and that they took advantage of the Coronavirus situation to deliberately create a killing field in our long-term care facilities?
Decimated: A Roman legion that had a tenth of its men killed in a particular battle was said to have been “decimated,” an indication that the cost in a given conflict in terms of combatant casualties was especially high.
The elderly in our long-term care facilities were literally decimated during the height of this pandemic. And it is still ongoing.
Senator Penacchio is right. We should investigate thoroughly. If we find any intentional wrongdoing, we should not refrain from dragging it out into the light. The same goes for grossly negligent decisions or actions that lead to deaths, of course. But the most important result would be to identify and prosecute high-level decision makers in government or in the hospital administrator or larger healthcare management community who intentionally targeted our elderly (or who cynically targeted those who suffer from comorbidity such as obesity or diabetes, and due to poverty or for cultural reasons tend to rely on hospital emergency rooms for primary health care treatment) for premature death due to a deranged ideological bent verging on modern-day eugenicism.
Don’t think we don’t have people among us who would act this way if they had the chance and believed they could get away with it. We absolutely do.”
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Trenton NJ, Assemblyman Christopher DePhillips, who will be participating at today’s Assembly hearings into the Murphy administration’s handling of New Jersey’s long-term care facilities, issued a statement in advance.
Continue reading Murphy Administration Ducks Hearing on Nursing Home COVID Deaths
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Trenton NJ , Senator Joe Pennacchio criticized the passage of A-4175 in the General Assembly. This legislation would allow up to $14 billion in new borrowing to cover operating expenses.
Continue reading Murphy Administration’s Failed COVID Response Leads to Property Tax Increase
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Trenton NJ, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli issued the following statement:
In a life and death crisis, we want – WE NEED – so badly to believe that our political leadership is acting in good faith in every way imaginable. Revelations disclosed in a nj.com investigative report suggest otherwise within the Murphy administration.
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Ridgewood NJ, More than 100,000 people are now dead in the United States because of a virus no one had heard of before late last year. This microscopic pathogen COVID19 brought life and lives to a halt.
The most important and ignored Coronavirus statistic is that 43% of U.S. deaths are from nursing homes . That means 2.1 million Americans in Long Term Care facilities , representing 0.62% of the U.S. population, account for 43% of all deaths due to COVID19 . In Ridgewood alone suffered 35 deaths from COVID19 and 28 were in Long Term Care .
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Trenton NJ, A published report stating that as the coronavirus gained a foothold, the health commissioner was reluctant to send state inspectors into nursing homes because they didn’t have sufficiently protective masks prompted outrage from Senator Joe Pennacchio.
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River Vale NJ, Assemblywomen Holly Schepisi comments on the Murphy Administration manipulation of Long Term Care COVID-19 death totals. According to Schepisi ,”1400 deaths have been removed by the State of N.J. between yesterday and today from the total number of COVID deaths from our Long Term Care Facilities because although the deaths appeared to be COVID caused deaths they were never lab confirmed by the facilities.
But even worse, the State is continuing to count these deaths in the overall State total! Today’s total death count was just reported as 10,586 deaths with 162 new deaths. Yesterday’s total death count was 10,435 deaths with 75 new deaths. Friday’s death count was 10,138 deaths. How do we continue to have 10,586 total deaths if we have subtracted out 1400 in the past 24 hours? If DATA DETERMINES DATES the data better make sense.”
Continue reading Murphy Administration Manipulates Long Term Care COVID-19 death totals
