Rep. Annette Glenn, R-Midland, today joined a bipartisan coalition in the state House of Representatives who approved a resolution urging Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to reverse her controversial policy of placing senior citizens who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 into nursing homes, mixing them with the most vulnerable segment of Michigan’s population – other seniors – which endangers their lives. The resolution opposing the governor’s policy passed the House 71-32 with strong bipartisan support.

“The governor’s nursing home policy defies reason and science,” Glenn said. “Despite opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike, the governor continues to needlessly put the lives of our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents at risk. It is also alarming the governor not only placed sick patients into nursing homes, but the homes received $5,000 for accepting COVID-19 patients.”

In other states that initially implemented that strategy, such as New York, governors quickly realized their mistake and reversed course, but Michigan has not. Ignoring families’ pleas to protect their family members, Whitmer has continued placing COVID-19 patients into long-term care facilities – putting individuals who’ve tested positive under the same roof as healthy residents.

She pointed to data indicating that senior citizens, especially those in nursing homes, are particularly vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus, noting that one-third of Michigan’s COVID-19 deaths – more than 1,900 people – were nursing home residents.

Under Whitmer’s policy, nursing homes without dedicated spaces to isolate and tend to COVID-19 patients are required to send them to regional hubs – separate nursing homes that have been approved by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.

A June 15 executive order by Whitmer forces these nursing home “hubs” to accept COVID-19 positive patients, “despite the obviously greater risk that doing so poses to healthy residents of those facilities,” Glenn said.