Brooklyn clinic owned by Orthodox Jews investigated for vaccine fraud

ParCare CEO Gary Schlesinger, right, posing with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, date unknown [photo credit: Daily Mail]

By Carolyn Yeager

THE COMPANY CURRENTLY IN NEW YORK GOVERNOR Andrew Cuomo's crosshairs is ParCare Community Health Network, which advertised the Moderna vaccine shipment they received on December 21 and proceeded to vaccinate those who came to them. They're in trouble for ignoring the current government mandate that only those who fall into the priority categories of health care workers or nursing home residents can receive the first vaccines.

New York State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker announced a criminal investigation into the Health Network, which operates a chain of clinics in Brooklyn, Manhattan and Orange County, NY, for potentially obtaining the vaccines “fraudulently” and administering them to members of the public when only certain groups are eligible to receive it. ParCare's case is now in the hands of the New York Attorney General’s Office for further investigation, with Gov. Cuomo alleging ParCare may have misrepresented themselves to receive the vaccines.

ParCare claims to have administered 869 vaccine doses since receiving their shipment of 2,300. They have since given back most of the rest of their vaccines to the state.

An anonymous woman with respiratory problems told Fox News upon receiving the vaccine in Brooklyn, ''I was so relieved and grateful, And shocked I could get it already.'

She also relayed that she paid $150 for her single vaccine shot at ParCare.

Interestingly, ParCare's website features only generic photos of very Nordic-looking doctors and staff, with no indications of their Orthodox Jewishness and no names of any staff listed. It's worth taking a look at their site at http://www.parcarecenter.com/.

Taking care of the Jewish community first?

According to Columbus Jewish News, a Jewish man named David (an alias) saw an advertisement on his local Long Island community Whatsapp group inviting people “like him” and his wife, both over 65, to go get the COVID-19 vaccine. He suspected it was a scam but after doing research “he found the provider, ParCare Community Health Network, was well known and had contracted with NYC's health authority to administer coronvirus tests to the Orthodox Jewish community.”

A vaccine is not a “test,” so it could be that the clinic was approved for giving COVID-19 tests earlier in the year, and used that connection to receive vaccines that they then misused for the special benefit of the Orthodox community. We will keep following this story.

It's interesting to me that the 2,300 vaccine doses were delivered to Par Care in Monroe, New York, the town that includes the Hasidic village of Kiryas Joel. [See my previous articles on Kiryas Joel and medicare fraud here and here and here and here.

“But it’s clear that those vaccinated by ParCare include prominent Orthodox leaders. Rabbi Hershel Schachter and Rabbi Mordechai Willig, both head teachers at Yeshiva University, were vaccinated at ParCare last week, and the network tweeted a video of their vaccinations. Neither Schachter, 79, nor Willig, 73, is a frontline health care worker or nursing home resident or worker, the two categories currently eligible for vaccines.” -Columbus Jewish News

Most likely all will be forgiven and ascribed to honest misunderstanding, but it is at the very least just more evidence of the Jewish trait of entitlement and greed that runs rampant in Orthodox Jewish-American communities.