The Daily - When Covid Hit Nursing Homes, Part 1: ‘My Mother Died Alone’

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

When New York was the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, Gov. Andrew Cuomo emerged as a singular, strong leader. Now his leadership is embattled, particularly over the extent of deaths in nursing homes during the peak.Today, in the first of two parts on what went wrong in New York's nursing homes, we look at the crisis through the eyes of a woman, Lorry Sullivan, who lost her mother in a New York nursing home.Guest: Amy Julia Harris, an investigative reporter on The New York Times’s Metro desk. Sign up here to get The Daily in your inbox each morning. And for an exclusive look at how the biggest stories on our show come together, subscribe to our newsletter. Background reading: Trying to quell a growing outcry over the state’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo launched into a 90-minute defense of his actions while lashing out at critics.The scrutiny of Covid-19 deaths in New York nursing homes has also put Governor Cuomo’s aggressive behavior in the spotlight.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

Maybe we could just start out, Lori, and you tell me a little bit about your mom. Can you describe her a little bit? She was a loving mother. She had five kids. She didn't work. She was always at home baking bread and making stews. I have 52 first cousins. 52?

52 first cousins. Oh, my gosh. I mean, talk about Irish people. I mean, come on now. But yeah, 52 first cousins. And then, you know, everybody got married. Then there was 104. And then there was, everybody had kids. When everybody would come over, she would never get flustered. She just, I mean, it was like she was cooking for a soup kitchen. It didn't matter if there was 10 people, 20 people, there was always enough food. I got to watch her cook the potato salad a couple of times and I would jot down what I saw her doing. So everybody was like, get her potato salad recipe. And then I would jot it down and it took me about six times of watching her to get all the ingredients. Wow. What was so special about it? It tastes like freaking ice cream. It's just so good. And it was like, you know, the trick had

to be Yukon gold potatoes, you know, had to be Hellman's mayonnaise. It had to be just a splash of the red vinegar and it had to be the yellow onion. I feel like all of that is just making me hungry thinking about all of that. And really, that was my mother's big thing was food and her clothes. My mother dressed beautiful. Yeah, what did she look like? She had auburn hair, light blue eyes, fair skinned. My mother, she was very pretty.

And then that's what shocked me when I went to see her when I hadn't seen her in a while. Because I wouldn't know that that was my mother. It looked absolutely nothing like her. Nothing. Nothing at all. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. The story of what happened to Lori's mother and thousands of people just like her inside New York's nursing homes is now the subject of a political firestorm and a federal investigation.

Today, we begin a two-part look with my colleague, Amy Julia Harris, at how the state's nursing homes became epicenters of death during the pandemic. It's Tuesday, February 23rd. Well, Lori, can we maybe go back to that time? And you tell me the story from the beginning of, you know, how your mom, she was first in a hospital and then went to the nursing home. Can you start in February of what happened? How did she end up in the hospital? My mother did fall a lot. She had a problem with her leg. Lori Sullivan's story begins almost exactly a year ago in February of 2020. Of course, she was in the kitchen.

Lori had been living with her mom, Lorraine Sullivan, on Long Island. She says her mom hated being alone. And after Lori's dad died, Lori looked after her. Her mom was 88 years old. She was largely in good health, but she was starting to have a hard time walking. I don't know what it is going down so nicely. Well, these socks are gone. I can't wear them.

Where are the slippers? They slip on the floor. Kitchen floor is slippery. I got a rubber bottom slippers. And one day she slipped and fell in the kitchen and hurt her knee. Wait a minute. You got to do it for the facts. You can't treat me gingerly.

Lori says her mom is tough. And at first her mom insisted she was fine. I'm fine, sweetheart. There's water here. I didn't pee. There's water. I don't know. It looks like pee to me.

But eventually, Lori convinced her mom to go to the hospital. And she was in there about five days. And she still couldn't walk. So they transferred her to the nursing home, which is next door in the rehab part. Okay. What was the name of the nursing home? Our Lady of Consolation.

She ended up making a lot of friends and she would give me a list every day of what everybody wanted and I either had to pick it up or make it and bring it in for them. And she would give me a list every day of what everybody wanted. And I either had to pick it up or make it and bring it in for them. And they would sit around and eat their cheese and cracker platters and everything. Lori visited her mother nearly every day. And she says that while her mom was holding up pretty well, she was looking forward to coming home, which the doctor said would likely be in a few weeks.

But then in mid-March, the pandemic slammed New York, and Governor Andrew Cuomo, knowing the risks that the virus posed to older residents, announced a lockdown of nursing homes, saying only medically necessary visits would be allowed. And I said, I'm going to bring her home. necessary visits would be allowed. And I said, I'm going to bring her home. And the nursing home said, your mother's going to be safely here, and then she's going to be at home with people coming in and out of the house. So they were saying because it was a lockdown facility, that would be safer than if she was at home where you're coming and going? Right. So we thought, okay, so they'll be on lockdown.

Everything will be okay. So Lori agrees to let her mom stay at the nursing home. And they go from seeing each other every day to spending their days together on FaceTime. Yeah, we talk to my mother every day on the phone a couple of times a day through call nonstop. And on their calls, her mom would describe how life was starting to change inside the facility.

She said, I don't know what's going on here. You know, there's a lot of running around and it's just different than it was. And they're so short staffed and blah, blah, blah. So I was thinking, well, maybe they're sending people to different floors. Maybe they're going to training in case they get COVID. That was the end of March. Then I didn't hear from my mother. And I would call her cell phone, no answer. And I would call her room phone, no answer.

Communication started to break down. Lori says she was having a hard time getting through to her mom, but also to the staff at the nursing home. When you've finished, you can hang up or press 1 for more options. Hello, my name is Lori Sullivan. My phone number is 631... You would have to call probably two days to get somebody to answer the phone once. And we would ask them, anything going on with COVID? No, everything's good.

Everything's good. Don't worry about it. Okay, fine. Then we still could not get in touch with her. But then Lori says she had a series of troubling interactions with the nursing home. Lori gave me her mom's medical records and recordings of her interactions with the nursing home from the time, which support her account. She got a call from the facility telling her that her mom had fallen out of her wheelchair. Then she got another call that her mom had fallen again, this time out of her bed.

And then one of her bed. And then one of her own calls got through. Then there was a Sunday. I finally... But I call you all the time and you don't answer. Got through to my mother. I don't know. And I recorded her. And it did not sound anything at all like my mother.

How do you feel? How do you feel, Mom? What? You don't feel good? Do you feel sick, Mom? Mom? I couldn't make out much of what she was saying. What?

I don't know how I was when I got out. I hope to God soon. I mean, you know, we are working on it, Mom. It's the whole government lockdown thing. You watching TV, Mom? Yeah.

What do you have on? Mom? Mom? Lori says she was shocked by the rapid decline in her mom's health. So when I got off the phone, I called the nurse's station and I said, something happened to my mom. I don't know if she had a stroke. I don't know what's wrong with her because she's slurring her words. So the nurse said, you know, hold on. And she went in and she came back to the phone and she said, well, your mom's fine. They said, she got yet another call from the nursing home.

And he said, your mother was found non-responsive this morning. So I said, like, what? She took two falls. Is it from the fall? Did she hit her head? Did she have a stroke? What's going on with my mother? He said, no, he goes, I think it's a UTI.

He said, we did the test and we have to wait for the results to come back. He said, and it could also be COVID-19. The doctor tells her your mother might have a urinary tract infection or she might have COVID-19, which Lori says is how she first found out that COVID had been found in the facility. And I'm sitting on the back path with my cousin and I have him on speakerphone and me and my cousin just looked at each other like, you gotta be kidding. I said, wait a minute. When we can get through,

we ask every time, is COVID in that facility? And we are told no every time. You're telling me that you had to call and tell me that my mother fell out of her wheelchair. You had to call and tell me that my mother fell out of her bed. But you didn't have to call and tell me that COVID was in the facility.

Are you freaking kidding me? So then I said, okay, so you're testing her for the UTI. I said, and you're testing her for COVID. So he said, no. I said, why not? He said, she doesn't meet the requirements. I said, which is? He said, a fever. Your mother doesn't have a fever. I said, my mother is sick. I talked to her on Sunday. You're telling me that now there's a chance she might have COVID because it's in the building and you're not testing her? No. Okay. I reached out to the nursing home with a detailed list of questions about Lorraine's treatment, but the home declined to comment, citing privacy concerns, and they defended the overall quality of care. But Lori's description of the doctor's response tracks with how a lot of nursing homes in New York said they handled this moment in the pandemic. pandemic. COVID tests were really hard to come by, even in nursing homes. And so if a patient didn't meet the qualifications to receive a test, like running a fever, the facility said they still tried to operate as if the patient might have it. I haven't seen my mother in weeks and my mother

is sick. I want to know if my mother has COVID. Lori says she was not reassured by her conversation with the doctor. She told him she'd like to take her mother out of the facility. His response was essentially, I can't let you do that. He said, you're not taking your mother home. I said, I am taking my mother home. So he said, well, you know, we're not planning a release. I said, my mother's coming home. So he left it as they were not planning the paperwork.

A few hours later, she spoke with a night nurse, and she asked him when COVID had first been discovered at the facility. And he said it was in March. I said it was in March before the lockdown or after lockdown. He said after lockdown. And he said the first case of COVID was a transfer from Good Samaritan, which is the hospital next door where my mother started out. It turned out that less than two weeks after Governor Cuomo issued the lockdown of nursing homes, his administration, scrambling to free up beds in hospitals, ordered that nursing Lady of Consolation would be the safest place for her mother, with no one other than staff members coming or going, the night nurse was now telling her

that a patient with COVID had been transferred into the nursing home. It's ultimately impossible to know exactly how COVID entered the facility. But at this point, Lori makes up her mind. So that was April 7th. April 7th, I went to the nursing home. You physically went there? I physically went there. And even though everything is locked down?

It was locked down. And I said, I want to see my mother. We'll be right back. So on April 7th, Lori showed up at the nursing home in person. All throughout New York at this time, the virus was spreading rapidly throughout these facilities. It was a moment of panic across the state, and for many of these places who had been told they had to accept these patients, they felt really unprepared for how to handle the situation or how to protect their staff or residents. Even nursing homes that had been well-staffed before

were starting to become overwhelmed, and many workers said they didn't have proper protective equipment. As staff members themselves fell ill, family members like Lori, who had been trying to reach them, were left feeling totally cut off from information, which in Lori's case led her to show up in person. But she was stopped by a security guard at the front desk. He said, I'm sorry, I can't let you in. I said, no, I'm sorry. I said, and you better let me in

because if you don't, I'm going to call every news station and tell them that there is COVID in this building and that nobody is letting families know. I said, people, we have not seen our parents. We can't even get to talk to them. Nobody answers the phones here. There's COVID here and nobody is telling anybody. I said, I will fill your parking lot. So they let me in. That was how I got in. Once she got inside, Lori said she was struck by how empty and how quiet it felt. As she made her way through the building to her mom's room on the second floor, she says she only saw a few staffers in the whole wing. And when she got to the room, she noticed a plate of moldy food by her mom's bedside.

And she saw her mom. And at first I thought they moved her. It looked nothing like my mother. Nothing. At all. My God, Shadow was 30 pounds. There was nothing left to her. Her face was sunken.

Her cheekbones were, like, protruding. And her cheeks were just hollowed out in her face. So I don't know till this day if this was like the head nurse or doctor and she was really nice. And I said, my mom is dying. I don't understand. How come nobody called me? So she said, well, it's not the policy right now. It would set off like a frenzy, but she didn't use the word frenzy.

She said, you know, and we're trying to keep things calm and we're doing the best that we can. I said, you're not doing the best you can. You're not. Because you still haven't tested my mother for COVID and my mother doesn't even have an IV in her arm. What are you doing for my mother? She's laying in a bed dying by herself. That's what she's doing. There's nothing here. There's nothing is being done for my mother. So then I said to her, when,

because I told my mother, you could tell she had a fever. I said, when did my mother first get a fever? And we walked out to the floating computer where she pulled up my mother's name and she said April 1st. I said, April 1st, my mother got a fever. Remember, the day before, on April 6th, Lori says the doctor on the phone had told her that her mother could not receive a COVID test because she didn't have a fever. I said, OK. And she was denied a COVID test because the doctor said she didn't have a fever. And today is April 7th and she started her fever April 1st. So nothing is making any sense here. Lori says she left the nursing home with a promise that now they would test her mom for COVID.

The next day, on April 8th, medical records show that Lori's mom received her test. The day after that, Lori got a call notifying her that her mom had tested positive. April 14th was my mother's birthday and I was making a cake and I said, well, I'll leave it at the nurse's station and I'm going to feed my mother some cake. There's no way they're not letting me in for a birthday. It's not going to happen.

So I got the cake stuff ready and I went to put everything in the oven and that's when they called me and said, your mom passed away. And that was at like 9.42 in the morning or something. I had just posted on Facebook.

It was three minutes before the phone call. You know, happy birthday to mom with the whole little picture collage of her and stuff. But my mother was dead. Her biggest fear was dying by herself. That's how she spent her last days. There's nothing but guilt.

Because I'm like, I was going to take her out of there. They told me she would be safe there. And she died by herself, which was her biggest fear. Yeah. All day, I keep so busy, so busy, so busy. When it's time to go to bed, that's all I think. What was she thinking when she was there all by herself? When her biggest fear was dying by herself?

In the end, almost 70 people in the nursing home died of COVID. Lori helped another woman with a family member in the facility start a Facebook group where people could communicate with one another about their experiences. Many of the family members talked about taking action, possibly suing the nursing home. Lori thought about going to a lawyer. But as it turned out, a couple of weeks before Lori's mother's death, something had happened that would make taking action all but impossible. It would be another couple weeks before the news of it would become public. But in late March, around the same time that Governor Cuomo's administration ordered that nursing homes accept COVID patients from hospitals, he quietly introduced legislation

protecting nursing homes from being held accountable for most COVID deaths, including the death of Lori's mother. Tomorrow, in part two, the story of the Cuomo administration's decisions around nursing homes and the fallout of the last six months. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Monday, the Supreme Court rejected a last-ditch attempt by former President Trump to shield his financial records from prosecutors in New York.

The case revolves around a subpoena from the Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance to Trump's accountant for tax records and financial statements since 2011. Trump has repeatedly sought to block Vance from obtaining the records. But with Monday's ruling, the accountant now has no choice but to turn the records over.

And... Today we mark a truly grim, heartbreaking milestone. 500,071 dead. In a speech on Monday night from the White House, President Biden marked the milestone of more than half a million deaths in the U.S. from the pandemic. I know it's hard. I promise you, I know it's hard. I remember. But that's how you heal. You have to remember. Invoking his own experience with tragedy,

Biden counseled the country not to move on, but instead to honor and mourn the dead. For those who have lost loved ones, this is what I know. They're never truly gone. They'll always be part of your heart. Today's episode was produced by Jessica Chung. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, Michael Benoit, and Anita Batajou, and engineered by Chris Chung. It was edited by Lisa Tobin, Michael Benoit, and Anita Batajow,

and engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.