Rep. Lynn Afendoulis | Michigan House Republicans
Rep. Lynn Afendoulis | Michigan House Republicans
State Rep. Lynn Afendoulis (R-Grand Rapids Township) on June 19 supported a House resolution opposing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's order requiring nursing homes and long-term care facilities to accept COVID-19 patients.
Afendoulis indicated that the governor is putting the lives of Michigan's seniors in danger on the Michigan House Republicans website.
Afendoulis spoke on the House floor about her own personal experience with her 84-year-old mother, who is suffering from dementia and lives in a care facility.
“They have worked hard to keep the residents healthy,” Afendoulis said, according to Michigan House Republicans. “COVID spread because the governor knowingly placed COVID-positive patients in nursing homes. This was a politically charged decision based on data to which we have not been privy and in the absence of any logic. If my mother had suffered or died because of it, I would be enraged.”
Afendoulis said that Whitmer, even though the state created additional facilities for coronavirus patients, still decided to send sick patients to nursing homes. The state spent $40,000 per day and $1.2 million per month to convert and operate the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi for coronavirus patients, and that location was used for only a few patients, according to Afendoulis.
“We’ve heard that’s because it wasn’t ‘comfy’ enough. Instead, patients were sent to nursing homes,” Afendoulis told Michigan House Republicans. “We traded 'comfy' for lives.”
From the beginning of the pandemic, it was know that senior citizens, particularly those in nursing homes, were extremely vulnerable to coronavirus. According to Afendoulis, reports show at least 34% of Michigan’s COVID-19 deaths, or 1,947 people, were nursing home residents. Those numbers are continuing to grow.
Afendoulis and other House lawmakers have called on Whitmer and her administration to release more information related to this policy, which has resulted in high numbers of nursing home deaths. Whitmer has acknowledged the policy is flawed, according to Afendoulis.
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