Paul M. da Costa Quoted in NJ.com Article, “The ‘entire workforce’ walked out when Covid hit veterans homes where hundreds died, SCI says.”

As published by NJ.com | October 3, 2023
By Susan K. Livio and Ted Sherman, NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Paul M. da Costa, Partner and chair of Snyder Sarno’s Medical Malpractice and Personal Injury department was quoted in the NJ.com article, “The ‘entire workforce’ walked out when Covid hit veteran’s homes where hundreds died, SCI says.” 

"When COVID-19 hit the Veterans Memorial Homes at Menlo Park and Paramus, workers began a mass exodus, according to a state report released Tuesday.

And as the crisis mounted, there was nobody to take their place.

In a critical new report issued Tuesday on the troubled state-run nursing facilities that care for veterans and their families, the State Commission on Investigation said administrators were unprepared for the massive absenteeism by frontline staff in the initial weeks of the pandemic. At the same time, the SCI said those in charge had mismanaged securing replacement staff, “leaving existing employees overwhelmed.”

. . . 

Attorney Paul M. da Costa of Roseland, who has represented many families whose loved ones died at Paramus and Menlo Park, said report was further corroboration of what his clients have been claiming for the past three years. But he said it also unfairly, in part, sought to scapegoat employees.

“It certainly is not the reason there was a massive wave of death at the facilities,” he argued, noting that employees, as the report confirmed, had been threatened with discipline for wearing masks when the pandemic spread unchecked through nursing homes across the state.

What the report does not speak to, da Costa added, was why there was ever a mask insubordination policy initiated in the first place."

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