#NY lawmakers want to strip hospitals, nursing homes of coronavirus lawsuit immunity

Two state legislators from New York City jointly announced a bill Friday to repeal the controversial law that largely shields hospitals and nursing homes from liability related to the coronavirus crisis.

State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi (D-The Bronx) and Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens) said they wanted to strip away the “blanket corporate immunity” granted, despite their objections, by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“It’s abundantly clear from the very beginning that our vulnerable population included our nursing homes,” said Biaggi, who agreed to co-sponsor a bill Kim introduced earlier.

“And from the very beginning our nursing homes did not receive the full support that they needed — from the state and from others.”

Kim said the issue was “kind of personal” to him because his uncle, Son Kim, died in a Flushing nursing home on April 16 after suffering “all the symptoms” of COVID-19.

“He was a US army captain and because of him, my family was allowed to immigrate here from South Korea,” Kim said.

“He happened to be one of the only Republicans in Flushing, and he loved Ronald Reagan, so I got my name from him.”

The Emergency or Disaster Treatment Protection Act was included in the $177 billion state budget bill for 2020-2021 that Cuomo signed on April 3.

It grants health care facilities and their employees “immunity from any liability, civil or criminal, for any harm or damages” allegedly inflicted while providing services amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The only exceptions are for acts of “willful or intentional criminal misconduct, gross negligence, reckless misconduct or intentional infliction of harm.”

The law also specifies that shortages of staffing or other resources can’t be used to allege wrongdoing.

Official data show there have been 24,495 confirmed coronavirus deaths in New York, including 3,456 nursing home residents, as of Thursday.

Another 2,718 nursing home residents are presumed to have died of COVID-19, for a total of 6,174.

The liability protections were drafted by the Greater New York Hospital Association, an industry group that gave the state Democratic Committee a total of $1.25 million in 2018, during Cuomo’s successful bid for a third term.

GNYHA spokesman Brian Conway said the group “strongly opposes this legislation” because “hospitals and their workers should not be second-guessed for trying to save as many lives as possible.”

Stephen Hanse of the New York State Health Facilities Association, which represents the nursing home industry, also said the bill “attempts to disparage all of the extraordinary efforts of New York’s frontline caregivers” amid an “unprecedented public health emergency.”

Cuomo spokesman Rich Azzopardi defended the law Cuomo signed as an extension of the state’s landmark “good Samaritan” legal protections, “which say that if you provide medical help to someone at the scene of an accident in an emergency you are immune from suit.”