VENTILATORS
SAFE FOR NOW
He Asks Upstate Hospitals
For Inventory, Just In Case
By ELIZABETH COOPER • Special to www.AllOTSEGO.com
Upstate communities can breath a sigh of relief.
National Guard troops will not be taking ventilators from Upstate hospitals for use in downstate hospitals hit hard by coronavirus, the infection that causes COVID-19.
In an executive order signed today, Governor Cuomo backtracked on statements made Friday about issuing an executive order to requisition medical supplies, including 20 percent of unused ventilators, and having the National Guard help ensure compliance.
Instead, he issued an executive order that hospitals provide an inventory of such equipment and that the state “may shift any such items not currently needed, or needed in the short term future by a health care facility to be transferred to a facility in urgent need.”
So instead of enforcing stealing ventilators using the National Guard, Cuomo has issued a mandate that he will ” shift” them if he feels the need arises. Semantics.