May 1, 2020

The Honorable Andrew M. Cuomo
Governor of New York State

NYS State Capitol Building

Albany, NY 12224

Re: Diamond Hill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center
Location: 100 New Turnpike Road, Troy, NY
Owner: Proprietary LLC
Operator: Diamond Hill Operator LLC
Operating Certificate: 4161305N

Governor Cuomo:

As County Executive for Rensselaer County, urge you to immediately direct the New
York State Department of Health to (1) transfer all confirmed residents from
Diamond Hill Nursing and Rehabilitation Center to a hospital or other appropriate medical
facility, (2) complete testing on all other residents as well as all Diamond Hill staff, (3)
disinfect the entire Diamond Hill facility, and (4) work with the Diamond Hill operator to
implement stringent infection control procedures to combat further spread of within
the facility.

Diamond Hill is a privately, not county, owned and operated nursing and rehabilitation
facility with 120 beds. The first confirmed positive case at Diamond Hill occurred on
April 3, 2020 and, since then, 25 Diamond Hill residents have been confirmed 
positive. To date, Diamond Hill residents have accounted for 12 of the 20 deaths in
Rensselaer County.

The State Department of Health licenses and inspects nursing homes in the State.
Notably, over the last few years, Diamond Hill has been cited for infection control failures as
well as failure to establish and maintain an infection prevention and control program, including
failure of staff to pmperly wear personal protective equipment to protect residents. Further, in
June 2019, Diamond Hill was listed in a Federal bi-partisan report as candidate for the Special
Focus Facilities program, which is an oversight program for persistently underperforming
facilities.

As set forth in my prior letter to you, dated April 28, 2020, urging you to withdraw the

State Department of Health advisory regarding hospital discharges and admissions to nursing
homes, with the health care system never reaching close to maximum capacity, a top priority in
managing the COVID-19 emergency response should have been, and now should be, more
pointedly focused on protecting seniors, rather than, as apparent, needlessly increasing
hospital capacity for all populations. Seniors are one of the populations, if not the population,
most vulnerable to the pandemic.

Thank you for your immediate attention to this urgent matter for the protection of
Diamond Hill resident seniors.

Respectfully,

77/

Steven F. McLa ghlin
Rensselaer County Executive

Cc: Dr. Howard Zucker
Commissioner
New York State Department of Health
Corning Tower
Empire State Plaza,
Albany, NY 12237

Mary Fran Wachunas

Rensselaer County Public Health Director
Rensselaer County Government Center
1600 Seventh Avenue

Troy, NY 12180