Sussex Co. Ballot Question Calls For COVID-19 Nursing Home Probe

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ — More than 34,000 or over 82 percent of Sussex County voters, chose “yes” to a county public question in Tuesday’s General Election, calling for a deeper independent probe of the COVID-19 deaths in New Jersey’s nursing homes, as well as further release of information related to handling of the nursing homes during the pandemic.

Unofficial results from the election show that 34,180 Sussex County voters picked “yes,” which equates to 82.19 percent, with 7,407 voters or 17.81 percent selecting “no" for the question.

New Jersey State Sen. Steve Oroho, R-24th Dist., who was re-elected to his seat on Tuesday and oversees the district that includes Sussex County, tallied the ballot question support as “four-to-one.”

According to the question, which was framed “on behalf of those who died of COVID-19 while residents of long-term care facilities within Sussex County and their families, as well as the Sussex County family members of residents of long-term care facilities situated elsewhere in New Jersey,” the ballot question directs Sussex County’s Board of County Commissioners to “consider every legal action necessary” to compel Gov. Phil Murphy and the leadership of New Jersey’s Legislature to release public information about COVID nursing homes that Sussex County officials requested.

Of particular interest to Sussex County have been the county-based Andover Subacute facilities, now called Limecrest Subacute and Rehabilitation Center and Woodland Behavioral Nursing Center, where in April 2020 at the height of the pandemic, 17 bodies were discovered stacked up in a makeshift morgue, in the facility.

The County Commissioners had directed that further information be released about these facilities via Sussex County’s attorney, which are regulated by the State of New Jersey, in Open Public Requests, requests that the state never responded to.

The second half of Sussex County's public question directs that an “independent, public, bi-partisan legislative investigation into the governmental policies, regulations and oversight of New Jersey’s long-term care facilities” - specifying both nursing and veterans’ homes - be performed, after 8,000 residents died in New Jersey’s nursing homes, from COVID-19.

The Andover facilities were fined $220,235 after the discovery of the bodies and subsequent inspections, for lack of documentation, the co-mingling of COVID-positive individuals with the healthy, a doctor’s concern that a COVID test hadn’t been done on a resident who ended up dying and lack of PPE for the Andover staff.

Recently, in a separate matter pertaining to the Andover Subacute facilities, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion that permits families in two class action lawsuits against Andover Subacute for the COVID-19 deaths, to keep their suits - which were transferred to the federal court - in the state court system.

RELATED: NJ Families Can File COVID Nursing Home Suits In State Courts

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