LAKE KATRINE – A handful of people belonging to the group New York Caring Majority held a physically-distanced vigil outside the Ten Broeck Commons nursing home in Lake Katrine on Saturday.
Nine residents have died there from COVID-19.
Organizers said the purpose of the vigil was to honor and value the lives of the residents, and to support workers in the facility.
New York Caring Majority is a coalition of seniors, people with disabilities, family caregivers, and home care workers in support of affordable long-term care and for increased pay and support for home care workers.
“New York’s nursing homes are in crisis,” said Bill Lipton, whose mother is at Ten Broeck Commons. “Despite heroic local efforts by Ulster County and by staff at nursing homes like my mom’s, we need the state’s resources to do that effectively. That kind of leadership and accountability have been missing and people are dying because of it.”
Lipton said they “don’t yet know the scope of the problem but we know that more and more of our loved ones are dying every day.”
He said the state’s “response to COVID has been consistently late but there are things the state can and should do now to mitigate the crisis.”
Gwendolyn Wright, an LPN at Wingate Ulster and member of SEIU 1199 said nursing said nursing home workers like herself “are being called healthcare heroes for the work we do on the front line. We are even classified as essential,” She said while she appreciates the support, “I love what I do. I am committed to caring for my residents in the best of times and the worst of times.”
Wright said what she and her coworkers need during this crisis “are the tools to keep safe on the job. We don’t have the option of working remotely while we care for the sickest, the most frail among us.”
The group has called on the governor to create a plan to remove residents who choose safely, and who will be safer in other settings; provide support and resources for nursing home workers; adequate staffing; regulation of nursing homes and transparent daily reporting on deaths and COVID-19 cases; and investment in home care and consumer directed personal care.
