Nursing Home Crisis Fuels Effort to Impeach Governor Tom Wolf

Elderly holding hands

 

By Maria Gallagher, Legislative Director

A shocking number of deaths at Pennsylvania nursing homes has led to an effort to impeach Democratic Governor Tom Wolf.

“We must not and cannot ignore the more than 3,000 deaths in Pennsylvania’s nursing homes and long-term care facilities that are directly linked to Wolf’s and his secretary’s unconscionable orders to admit infected COVID-19 patients,” said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R-Butler).

Metcalfe has introduced House Resolution 915, which calls for the impeachment of the Governor following the massive loss of life in Pennsylvania linked to the Coronavirus crisis.

The southwestern Pennsylvania lawmaker has introduced five articles of impeachment, one of which specifically deals with the callous manner in which nursing home residents have been treated during the pandemic.

Article IV of the impeachment resolution states, “Governor Wolf failed in his duty to protect the citizens of this commonwealth who are most vulnerable to COVlD-19: residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities.

“Although Governor Wolf had ample notice that residents of nursing homes
and long-term care facilities were at severe risk of contracting
and dying from COVID-I9, Governor Wolf failed to direct the
Department of Health to develop and implement a comprehensive
plan to protect them. More than two-thirds of all COVID-I9-
related fatalities in this commonwealth have occurred in nursing
homes and long-term care faciities.”

In a news release, Metcalfe, who has attracted 24 co-sponsors for his resolution, added, ““Pennsylvania citizens deserve and demand far better than a petulant socialist dictator with a well-documented history of unconstitutional and unlawful misbehavior cowardly occupying the governor’s office. No individual or regime is above the law. The time for Wolf’s impeachment is now!”