MI prosecutor claims he has received hundreds of complaints regarding state's nursing home policies

A prosecutor in Macomb County, Michigan says he has received a significant number of complaints from residents whose loved ones died while in the care of state nursing home facilities, potentially foreshadowing further action against state Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Peter Lucido, the county prosecutor who announced this week his intent to restart a review board investigating Whitmer's nursing home policies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, said "hundreds" of residents have contacted him about relatives who died in nursing home facilities in Michigan. 

"I am seeking the truth because the families of lost loved ones deserve to know the truth," Lucido said, according to the Macomb Daily, "Those seniors have died without their loved ones holding their hand. I want to stop all the calls, all the heartache."

Whitmer has come under fire recently for being among the numerous Democratic governors who ordered nursing homes to accept COVID-19-positive patients at the outset of the pandemic, a decision critics claim has contributed to significantly elevated nursing home death rates in that state and in others.