Two men have been indicted by a grand jury for "wantonly and recklessly" readmitting elderly veterans who tested positive for the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) back into the Holyoke Soldiers' Home care facility where they were living, which allegedly led to the deaths of 76 patients and staff.
Bennett Walsh, 50, and Dr. David Clinton, 71, are being accused of criminal negligence in the matter, for which they now face federal charges. The claim is that returning Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) patients back to the facility after they were treated at area hospitals led to an outbreak of the novel virus that killed dozens of others.
Even though Anthony Fauci back in July declared that New York "did it correctly" in fighting the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19), now serving as a model template for other states to follow, policies in the Empire State that allowed Walsh and Clinton to do what they did are now being dubbed as negligent.
Similar policies exist in nearby Massachusetts, by the way, where Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) patients were sent back to their long-term care facilities as a rule of thumb. In other words, caretakers had no choice but to follow this procedure, and are now being scapegoated as criminals for simply abiding by the rules.
According to reports, Walsh and Clinton each face five counts for two charges of permitting or causing bodily injury and abuse, neglect or mistreatment of an older or disabled person.
"As staff members called out en masse and the coronavirus spread like wildfire through the home, the administrators made some desperate decisions that led to patients being crowded into new wards, with COVID-positive, and non-positive, patients mingling without any protection," reports Zero Hedge about the case.
If you are interested in reading more stories like this one about the fallout from the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic, you can do so at Pandemic.news.
Should elderly care facility heads be held responsible if their residents die from covid-19?
Details about what transpired that led to the charges were outlined by The New York Times and reiterated by Zero Hedge. You can get up to speed on those if you are interested by checking out this link.
This writer's summary of those details is this: Walsh and Clinton made some decisions in the heat of the pandemic that supposedly intermixed infected people with uninfected people, resulting in an outbreak. And this outbreak, sadly, resulted in dozens of people dying, supposedly from the virus.
Neither of the two likely intended to harm anyone, and yet the nature of the novel virus was still unknown, as the incident occurred back in March. Consequently, some people died who may have died anyway due to age and preexisting conditions – again, not necessarily at the fault of those in charge who apparently did what they thought was best.
On the other hand, employees at the facility told investigators that they believe some of the decisions made were, in fact, reckless. The merging of a covid-19 ward with a dementia ward was "the most insane thing I ever saw in my entire life," one employee reportedly stated.
"The residents in the consolidated unit were allegedly mingling together, regardless of Covid-19 status," the investigators' office reported.
Another thing to consider is that the Wuhan coronavirus (covid-19) had, around this time, been declared as "the perfect killing machine" for the elderly and the infirmed, which implies that the decision to comingle infected and non-infected people was reckless.
Should it not fall on the politicians in charge of New York and Massachusetts to bear responsibility, though? What do you think? Should senior care facility managers be held responsible for deaths arising from misplaced government policies?
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