Can NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation Substantiate Its Spring 2020 Death Toll?
The agency's latest denial to one of my public records requests strongly suggests the answer is NO, something else is being hidden, or both.
The agency which controls New York City’s public hospitals has denied a freedom of information request for basic data yet again, bolstering my impression that records related to the system’s massive spring 2020 hospital death toll - and the events inside Elmhurst Hospital - are being intentionally & illegally withheld.
The Request
On 8 September 2024, I asked NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation (HHC) for the morgue capacity of each HHC hospital (n=11) and the daily number of decedents in each hospital’s morgue (i.e. morgue census) between 1 January 2016 and 1 January 2023. I included a provision for records in a time increment other than daily census.
I made the request because I want to cross-check the number of deaths HHC says occurred daily in its hospitals in 2020 against hospital morgue census. Both city and federal agencies provided additional decedent storage during the spring event. Records I obtained from FEMA earlier this year showed a small number of refrigerator trucks were deployed, with only 22 of 85 dispatched to or near one of the city’s 60 hospitals. Only one HHC hospital (Lincoln Medical Center) received federal storage - specifically two units with shelving.
Last month, I submitted a request to NYC Emergency Management Agency regarding the number of body collection points (BCPs, aka morgue trailers) sent to each hospital in the city during the spring event, and the number of decedents placed into each one. The request is unfilled and overdue.
The HHC Response
HHC responded yesterday and provided morgue capacity per hospital but would not provide census data, issuing a denial disguised as a claim that they have no responsive records.
The semantics employed are astounding [emphases mine]:
NYC Health + Hospitals does not currently produce a report that presents the data in the level of detail requested. In addition, we do not capture morgue census in our facilities in a manner that would allow us to generate a report without additional programming and the creation of a new record without analyzing line data which would be a substantial amount of work which is beyond the scope required by Public Officer Law 89 3 (a). Therefore, we have no records responsive to this portion of your FOIL request.
Allow me to show how evasive they’re being:
‘we have no records responsive’ - This is false and belied by the preceding sentences. Responsive records exist but are being denied.
‘We don’t currently produce a report…’ - But you used to?
‘…in the level of detail requested’ - What about at another level of detail?
‘we do not capture morgue census…in a manner that…’ - In what manner is it captured? Let’s see the records in that manner.
‘would allow us to generate a report without additional programming’ - What kind of programming? How hard can this be? This is 2024, not 1954.
‘creation of a new record’ - Creation of a new record how? I’ve heard this excuse before (1st time, 2nd time, 3rd time1); it makes no sense and appears contradictory to the law (discussed further below).
‘analyzing line data’ What does this mean and why is it required to generate a report? What needs to be analyzed?
‘a substantial amount of work beyond the scope required by Public Officer Law 89 3 (a)’ - It’s not clear which portion of the statute is being cited. There is no provision in the law for denying a request because it requires a ‘substantial’ amount of work. The task must be defined as burdensome and - even if it is - the statute says the agency ‘may engage an outside professional service to provide copying, programming or other services required to provide the copy, the costs of which the agency may recover pursuant to paragraph (c) of subdivision one of section eighty-seven of this article.’
The Law
This latest response is the fourth time HHC has given me an excuse about data being in a digital format or place that would require creating a new record. If my reading of state public records code is correct, they are in violation:
When an agency has the ability to retrieve or extract a record or data maintained in a computer storage system with reasonable effort, it shall be required to do so. When doing so requires less employee time than engaging in manual retrieval or redactions from non-electronic records, the agency shall be required to retrieve or extract such record or data electronically. Any programming necessary to retrieve a record maintained in a computer storage system and to transfer that record to the medium requested by a person or to allow the transferred record to be read or printed shall not be deemed to be the preparation or creation of a new record.
As the largest public hospital system in the country, HHC has the ability to retrieve the records. Further, the law is clear that they cannot say accessing the records from whatever digital black box they’re in is creating a new record.
Also, per §89(a) of the FOIL statutes:
When records maintained electronically include items of information that would be available under this article, as well as items of information that may be withheld, an agency in designing its information retrieval methods, whenever practicable and reasonable, shall do so in a manner that permits the segregation and retrieval of available items in order to provide maximum public access.
In other words, the burden of maintaining databases in a way that makes it efficient to generate responses to public records requests is on HHC. If they are keeping the data in a format that makes it very difficult for staff to retrieve, that’s not the requestor’s fault - nor is it grounds to say there are no responsive records or otherwise deny the release of records that do exist.
The HHC Problems (Summary)
A running list of problems with data, requests and/or inquiries of or connected to NYC Health + Hospitals Corporation follows:
Request to New York City Health + Hospitals Corporation (HHC) for daily death and blood culture data between 2017-2020 was delayed six months with a final response granting records for 2020 only; appeal denied.
Inquiry to HHC COVID Research Committee regarding discrepancy between data supplied to researchers and data reported to HDNY: Ignored. (Related inquiries to lead researcher and John Ioannidis also unanswered.)
Requests to HHC employees for data in two studies that report taxpayer-funded data were ignored after authors initially said they would supply it.
Data for total staffed bed daily census at Elmhurst Hospital from 2016 - 2020 requested and denied; request for daily occupied beds granted.
Discrepant data for Elmhurst Hospital bed occupancy.
Discrepant data for Elmhurst emergency department visits.
Request for daily number of emergency department visits (for any reason) to Elmhurst between 2006 and 2023 denied in part. HHC provided monthly data and for 2019 through 2023 only.
(Described in present article): Request for hospital morgue capacities granted; “no responsive records” for daily hospital morgue census data, 2016 -2023.
Request to HHC for medication & intubation data more than three months overdue.
At this point, surely even those who disagree with my assertion that the New York City 2020 death curve is manipulated can concede the city’s taxpayer-funded hospital agency isn’t simply stalling or being lazy. They are making a concerted effort to keep data from public view.
Next related post
See response under “U-Turn” section