Wow. Over here at USA Today, Fox’s always ebullient meteorologist Janice Dean has written a blistering Op-Ed on the deaths of both her husband’s parents while they were in a New York nursing home. They died after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo allowed patients infected with the Covid-19 virus to be admitted to nursing homes – exactly the institutions sheltering older people – those most vulnerable to the virus.
The headline on the USA Today article:
Janice Dean: COVID-19 killed my in-laws after Cuomo’s reckless New York nursing home policy
At first, we didn’t blame anyone for my in-laws’ deaths. This is a pandemic, after all. Then we learned about a policy that put them in danger.
Among other things, Ms. Dean says this:
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s motto during the coronavirus pandemic has always been “New York Tough.”
It’s the title of the new poster he commissioned and is selling to commemorate what appears to be his own personal journey during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But when it comes to tough questions about his leadership during this time, Cuomo has shown he isn’t so tough after all. In fact, he prefers to place blame on anyone but himself for the disastrous decisions he’s made.”
She recounts that the Governor has pushed the poster, with this or that inside joke, and writes:
“My family didn’t have to die. Many of us aren’t laughing. My husband’s parents died of coronavirus in their elder care facilities. We lost his dad in late March and his mom two weeks later. My family wasn’t able to see them before they died, they weren’t given last rites, wakes, or funerals. They died alone.”
Over here at Mediaite is more on this, based on Dean’s appearance on Brian Kilmeade’s radio show. It seems there was a hearing set to discuss and investigate what happened in these nursing homes – and Janice Dean was on the list of witnesses scheduled to testify.
That story says:
“Dean told Fox News Radio host Brian Kilmeade that she was taken off the list of people meant to be at Monday’s public hearings, noting that she filled out the paperwork and was in contact with Assemblyman Kevin Byrne, who promised her access.
‘I think that it was Andrew Cuomo or his administration that decided that they didn’t want my voice to be heard. And that’s really unfortunate,’ she added. ‘I was going to watch today, Brian, but I have no desire to watch anymore because it just is another indication that they don’t want a real investigation. This is a complete sham.’
Kilmeade noted that the hearing would lack a Republican presence to keep Cuomo accountable and added that those invited would fail to contradict him before asking Dean if the federal government is at all responsible.
‘Well, listen, you can blame a lot of things on the federal government, but as far as I’m concerned, they gave Governor Cuomo everything that he wanted.’”
Let’s get this out there.
The treatment of Janice Dean’s in-laws, not to mention all the other residents of these New York nursing homes, was and is an absolute disgrace. Yes, indeed there needs to be a top-to-bottom investigation of what was done here by the Governor and his administration.
Can you imagine the uproar if the Governor of New York who had done this was…Donald Trump? This was so egregiously unnecessary. To aggravate the situation by trying to silence Janice Dean only adds insult to the injury.
As someone who took care of my own senior parents at home, I cannot imagine the feelings of grief of placing one’s parents in a nursing home in the middle of a pandemic – and then, to quote Janice Dead again, knowing that they had died – alone. Because of a decision made by the governor. Again, she said:
“My family wasn’t able to see them before they died, they weren’t given last rites, wakes, or funerals. They died alone.”
What happened here is unacceptable. And one has to know Janice Dean and her family are not alone in this situation.
Hello? Governor Cuomo? This was your decision. Your responsibility. At least have the chops, the simple human decency, to man-up and listen to Janice Dean – in person.
At the very least, she and the families of all these other victims who died because of your decision deserve to be granted the minimum courtesy of a hearing – directly from you.
