Opinion | Michigan has paid a terrible price for COVID-19 nursing home policies

We’re living in a new normal with COVID-19.

Suggestions on what to do and not do as this pandemic continues have been rampant. I have heard from people who are nervous about giving their parents and grandparents a hug or spending time with them in their home because of the risk of transmission and how harshly this virus impacts our elderly population.

There has been a whole lot of fear and a whole lot of loss during COVID-19. The stories are gut-wrenching. Many people in the state will never have the chance to embrace their loved ones again. Some didn’t have the chance to do so one last time, having to say their goodbyes via video call instead of risking exposure. People have been taken from us — over 6,500 of them — by an invisible enemy we continue to battle.

Nursing homes have been hit especially hard. More than 2,000 COVID-19 deaths in Michigan have been in long-term care facilities – which accounts for more than 30 percent of the state’s total deaths from the virus. These are friends and family members we lose forever.

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I share these sobering statistics because I constantly wonder why our state continues on with a policy that places COVID-19 patients in nursing homes with a healthy and vulnerable population. Way back in the beginning of this, our country’s first big COVID-19 outbreak was at a nursing home in Washington state. The virus ripped through that facility, and a report afterwards from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated that rapid transmission can occur once COVID-19 is introduced into a long-term care center.

Are we following data, science and the facts? That is what we were told would shape our state’s response to this crisis, but decisions like these show that we’ve strayed from this strategy.

I know what many of you are probably saying if you’ve made it to this point in the column – “Well, what are you going to do it about it, Jack?” That’s certainly fair. And I am doing everything in my power as a state representative to deliver a smart approach that respects and preserves lives. I voted to send Senate Bill 956 to the governor’s desk – which would have tasked the state’s Department of Health and Human Services with creating at least one dedicated regional facility within each of the state’s eight health regions for use as COVID-19 patient care centers. The placement of individuals with COVID-19 in any long-term care facility when it doesn’t have a separate, dedicated building for patients to be properly quarantined and cared for would also have been prohibited.

This legislation was vetoed. I also supported House Resolution 276, which called on the administration to end the current COVID-19 nursing home placement policy. But it fell on deaf ears after moving through the Legislature. Other states using nursing homes as COVID-19 wards have reversed course in recent months, but we inexplicably continue on. It doesn’t make sense – and good sense is what we need most when things get bad.

The Joint Select Committee on the COVID-19 Pandemic, which I serve on, will also examine the decision-making behind this policy. Over the next month, we will be holding hearings with state department officials to deliver needed accountability and integrity to the people during these unprecedented times.

My heart aches for the families who have lost loved ones due to this virus and I am committed to pursuing policies that keep our most vulnerable population safe and hold our leaders accountable. The lives of Michigan residents depend on it.