{"id":75544,"date":"2025-12-19T15:09:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/75544\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T15:09:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:09:12","slug":"exclusive-elise-stefanik-demands-kathy-hochul-reveal-how-many-nyers-were-victimized-by-2020-do-not-resuscitate-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/75544\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Elise Stefanik demands Kathy Hochul reveal how many NYers were victimized by 2020 ‘do not resuscitate’ order"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is demanding New York Gov. Kathy Hochul<\/a> cough up information about a disturbing pandemic-era do-not-resuscitate policy<\/a> that was in effect for three days before state officials reversed course due to public backlash.<\/p>\n

Stefanik, who is running for the right to challenge Hochul in next year\u2019s gubernatorial race, wants to know how many people who passed away between April 17-20, 2020, might have been saved had the directive \u2014 revealed by The Post \u2014 not been in effect. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not the role of politicians and bureaucrats in Albany to play God and decide who deserves to live or die when a New Yorker dials 911 for help,\u201d Stefanik wrote in a letter to Hochul, who was Andrew Cuomo\u2019s lieutenant governor at the time.<\/p>\n

Rep. Elise Stefanik contended that every patient has the right to lifesaving care. AP<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery patient deserves a chance at lifesaving care. This order was a betrayal of that principle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefanik sent the letter on the same day Hochul confirmed that she will sign right-to-die legislation<\/a> permitting terminally ill New Yorkers to end their lives, joining 12 other states who have similar measures on the books. <\/p>\n

The 2020 order \u201cinstructed New York\u2019s EMS workers to not attempt to revive patients without a pulse, a policy that the public only discovered through the New York Post,\u201d Stefanik wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust three days later, the order was abruptly suspended after outrage from the public and frontline professionals.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the time, officials justified the drastic measure by claiming it was necessary to \u201cprotect the health and safety of EMS providers by limiting their exposure\u201d amid the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

The order was issued weeks after the Regional Emergency Services Council of New York, which oversees the Big Apple\u2019s ambulance services, said that cardiac arrest patients whose hearts<\/a> could not be restarted at the scene should not be brought to the hospital due to emergency rooms and intensive care units being swamped with COVID patients. <\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul was lieutenant governor at the time when the do-not-resuscitate policy was enacted. SARAH YENESEL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

The guidance marked an abandonment of the New York State Department of Health\u2019s longstanding practice of making resuscitation efforts for at least 20 minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis directive was not only immoral, but it ran completely counter to the Department\u2019s own mission to protect and promote the health and well-being of all New Yorkers,\u201d Stefanik lamented. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe only silver lining is that New York City EMS workers ignored this dangerous directive, recognizing it for what it was,\u201d she later added. \u201cTragically, EMS workers in the rest of the state were bound by the state government\u2019s order, with deadly consequences for families who will never know if their loved ones could have been saved.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she will sign a right-to-die bill into law. SARAH YENESEL\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Stefanik argued that as lieutenant governor, Hochul was surely \u201cprivy to the conversations\u201d that led to the order being issued. <\/p>\n

A Hochul rep responded: \u201cOnce again, Elise Stefanik is showing how little she understands state government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly the Governor has direct oversight of state agencies,\u201d the spokesperson stressed. \u201cWhile serving as Lieutenant Governor under the previous administration, Governor Hochul had no role in issuing this directive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stefanik is demanding to know which New York state counties complied with the do not resuscitate order, how many EMS calls were made while the directive was in effect, and how many New Yorkers in cardiac arrest did not receive resuscitation efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) is demanding New York Gov. Kathy Hochul cough up information about a disturbing pandemic-era…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80,8676,37919,416,424,9174,426,9,11,10,6710,87,58],"class_list":["post-75544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-andrew-cuomo","tag-coronavirus","tag-coronavirus-in-ny","tag-elections","tag-elise-stefanik","tag-ems","tag-kathy-hochul","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-pandemics","tag-politics","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}