A staggering 34% of Covid deaths in the US are linked to nursing homes. March 13 marks a year since nursing home residents have been in lockdown. Join us Sat. March 13th at 6 pm outside of Coler Nursing Home or virtually on FB to mark this sobering milestone. #HighRiskCovid19 pic.twitter.com/HpZFzIH4G7
OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc) March 4, 2021
Coler nursing home residents on Roosevelt Island have been #lockeddown for over a year now. They only receive 45 minutes of outside time, and cannot receive visitors. It is almost every week that new staff member tests positive and entire units are locked down. #HighRiskCovid19 pic.twitter.com/gX0awHVxvJ
OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc) March 10, 2021
Many of the residents in Coler are Black and brown disabled people, and not all of them are elderly. The deaths undercounted by the Cuomo admin are largely POC. #NursingHomeLivesMatter founder Vince Pierce created this video in response. pic.twitter.com/4PhFshQsTN
OPEN DOORS (@opendoorsnyc) March 10, 2021
The Friends Of Coler are a group of Roosevelt Island residents organizing to help the patients and staff of NYC Health & Hospitals Corp (HHC) Coler Facility during the Coronavirus pandemc. According to Friends Of Coler:
Dear Friends of Coler,
We invite you to join Nursing Home Lives Matter outside of Coler or on Facebook live:facebook.com/opendoorsnyc for a Twilight Vigil
Join to listen and bear witness to the ongoing human toll of the pandemics mismanagement. We will channel our grief into a call for more holistic policies and practices to protect nursing home residents because #IsolationKillsToo.
Join to read the names of lost friends, hold space for those who remain nameless, and memorialize this year of catastrophic loss through remembrances, protest, and poetry by Coler residents and remarks from local faith leaders and elected officials. We will close with an awe-inspiring temporal artwork that affirms #NursingHomeLivesMatter
Honoring those weve lost and mourning the loss of freedom and connection for
those whove been locked inside for a year.Saturday, March 13, 6 pm EST (Rain Date: Sunday, March 14, 6 pm EST)
In person: Coler Nursing Home900 Main St, Roosevelt Island, NY
& Virtual: OPEN DOORS Facebook Live:facebook.com/opendoorsnycLast month the New York Attorney Generals office released a report declaring that the state vastly undercounted nursing home deaths. It is unacceptable that these lives were erased and politicized, and once reported became statistics. March 12th will be one year since the state’ lockdown on nursing homes began.
Join us on Saturday, the 13th, at 6pm, outside of Coler Nursing Home and online, to mark this sobering milestone. From both sides of Colers fence, we will honor those weve lost, known and unknown, and mourn the loss of freedom and connection by those still confined inside Coler and other congregate facilities, cut off from their agency and loved ones.
One Coler resident describes their experience of isolation this past spring, summer, fall, winter by saying, This isnt a life, this is an existence.
We will listen and bear witness to the ongoing human toll of the pandemics mismanagement. We will channel our grief into a call for more holistic policies and practices to protect nursing home residents because #IsolationKillsToo.
We will read the names of lost friends, hold space for those who remain nameless, and memorialize this year of catastrophic loss through remembrances, protest, and poetry by Coler residents and remarks from local faith leaders and elected officials. We will close with an awe-inspiring temporal artwork that affirms #NursingHomeLivesMatter.
If you would like to join Friends of Coler, send them an email.