Skoufis Announces Senate District's Hospital Ventilators Protected

Senator James Skoufis (D-Hudson Valley) announced that he has confirmed there will NOT be a redistribution of ventilators from Orange and Rockland county hospitals to further downstate New York. Given the high positive numbers in each county, the Governor's office made the commitment that Skoufis ought to rest assured the redistribution efforts would be elsewhere, further upstate. Skoufis reached out to local hospitals and confirmed that, indeed, they have not had any conversations with the Governor's office or State Department of Health regarding redistributing their ventilator stock.

Amidst the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, Governor Cuomo issued an Executive Order earlier this week directing the National Guard to redistribute ventilators and personal protective equipment from institutions “upstate” that don't currently need them and redeploy the equipment to downstate hospitals with the highest need. Skoufis' Senate District includes northern Rockland county, eastern Orange county, and southern Ulster county which is served by St. Luke's in Newburgh.

Senator Skoufis said, “I spoke with the Governor’s top staff and made it abundantly clear that our Senate District's hospitals are already limited in resources and these life-saving supplies are not to be moved to any other part of the state. It is exceedingly obvious that our Senate District must be treated as a highly-impacted area. I’m relieved that our efforts to preserve our health care infrastructure are paying off and I pledge to continue to advocate for our region’s urgent needs.” 

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