Bent Philipson, nursing home deaths don’t match official NY state tallies

It’s don’t test, don’t tell at New York nursing homes.

Deaths soared at two NYC nursing homes and two in Nassau County at the height of the coronavirus outbreak. But the official state counts show far fewer COVID-19 related fatalities.

At the 268-bed Cypress Garden Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Flushing, 76 patients died from March 1 through May 2, including 68 in April alone, according to internal documents seen by The Post.

The state tally is just seven deaths.

Department of Health inspectors visited the home this week and the probe is ongoing, the agency said.

At Coney Island’s 360-bed Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, 74 patients died through May 1. The state tally is 25.

There were 41 patient deaths at the 280-bed Townhouse Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing in Uniondale through May 2. The state count is 16.

Deaths also soared at the 588-bed Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation in Woodbury. The number of residents who died jumped from 24 in March to 80 in April and 11 through May 8 — a total of 115 fatalities, documents show.

The official state tally: 23

Nerly Guerrier, the former head of nursing at the facility, said only one resident had been tested for COVID-19 by the time she left in March.

Guerrier, who worked at the home for two years, said about five residents would die in a typical month pre-COVID-19.

“How do you explain over 100 people?” she asked. Guerrier and other Haitian nurses have sued the home for discrimination.

With confusion reigning over ever-changing reporting rules, critics are blaming both the state and the homes for undercounting the dead — and whitewashing the full breadth of the nursing home crisis.

Insiders said virtually no coronavirus testing took place at the homes which meant when someone died, there was no definitive way to say the virus was to blame — even when it was strongly suspected.

Some homes complained about a lack of test kits. And the state Department of Health in March told New York City area nursing homes that testing wasn’t needed — to just presume that residents with COVID-19 symptoms had the bug.

The state also changed requirements for nursing homes about which deaths to include in its reports. And the DOH’s official count initially left off some facilities entirely.

“I think some providers have taken advantage of a situation where there is confusion,” said Richard Mollot, the head of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, an advocacy group. “They can unfortunately really game the system here in terms of being forthright, being honest with residents and families.”

The official state tally of nursing home deaths has topped 5,400 including those presumed to have the virus. However, the state no longer includes nursing home residents who died hospitals in that body count.

A family member of a Cold Spring Hills resident said coronavirus patients admitted to the home from hospitals “set off the fire” because staffers took care of those residents and others.

“They float nurses and aides all the time to different areas to fill in,” the family member said.

Cuomo in March mandated that nursing homes accept recovering COVID-19 patients from hospitals, a controversial policy he reversed only last week when he also required twice-weekly tests for staff.

Francine Solomon said her 93-year-old mother-in-law, Iris Solomon, died at the home on April 8, three days after she started having respiratory problems. She said she was otherwise healthy and believes COVID-19 was to blame for the death — although she was never tested.

“They were definitely hiding the fact that they had all these cases,” Solomon said. “They just basically swept it under the rug. It was business as usual.”

The home started sending text updates to families alerting them of case counts in late April.

The state DOH is investigating the facility after receiving a complaint that bodies were being kept in an unrefrigerated makeshift morgue. The agency did an unannounced inspection on Saturday night, May 9, Guerrier said.

A DOH spokeswoman said no deficiencies were found.

Cold Spring Hills and Townhouse are part of Philosophy Care Centers headed by Bent Philipson.

The network got high praise from Cuomo last month when one of its upstate homes donated ventilators to be used downstate. But Philipson has had his share of negative publicity.

A federal judge ruled in September that he and others at SentosaCare — which had been the state’s largest for-profit nursing home network —  were personally liable for violating the Trafficking Victims Protection Act in a long-running case involving the hiring of Filipino nurses to work at a Suffolk County nursing home.

The nurses alleged they were threatened with financial harm if they quit.

He and other defendants are appealing.

Philosophy Care did not respond to requests for comment.

Jacqueline Kreismann, a spokeswoman for Excelsior Care, which runs the Cypress Garden and Seagate homes, said “both facilities have been extremely diligent about following the Department of Health’s reporting guidelines and, as such, stand by the COVID-19 related death numbers that have been submitted.”

Kreismann could not explain why so many people died at the homes in March and April.

An April 12 COVID-19 inspection at Seagate did not find any deficiencies, the DOH said.

HIDDEN DEATHS

The number of deaths at four nursing homes, from March through early May, was much higher than the official state tally of COVID-19 deaths:

Cold Spring Hills Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation, Woodbury, LI

Deaths: 115

State tally: 23

Cypress Gardens Center for Nursing & Rehabilitation, Flushing

Deaths: 76

State tally: 7

Seagate Rehabilitation & Nursing Center, Coney Island

Deaths: 74

State tally: 25

Townhouse Center for Rehabilitation & Nursing, Uniondale, LI

Deaths: 41

State tally: 16