Janice Dean: Cuomo’s reckless nursing home policy killed my in-laws

We have said it before and we will say it again boldly because it is obvious. Democrats, who have always been enthralled with the idea of having the power enforce euthanasia, found a way to do it and get elderly off state medical aid, pack COVID-19 patients in nursing homes and let the virus do the work. It was no accident.

Why were nursing homes in New York packed with COVID patients when the hospital ships and Army hospitals made available to New York remained largely empty?

Democrats and the leftist media such as CNN and MSNBC keep praising Governor Cuomo COVID response as the way it should be done, even though he had the most COVID deaths of any state. Quite simply, they approve.

Janice dean with her inlaws covid ny2
Janice Dean with her in-laws

USA Today:

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.

Mickey and Dee Newman spent their entire lives in Brooklyn. They were true New Yorkers. Mickey was a retired New York City Fire Department firefighter who served in the U.S. Air Force. Dee helped raised three kids and was a devoted grandmother. They lived in a four story walk up in Brooklyn for 50 years, until their health deteriorated and they required constant care. They died only a few months after being placed in their elderly care homes. Not a day goes by where we don’t think of them.

At first, we didn’t blame anyone for their deaths. This is a pandemic, and the virus is particularly dangerous for the elderly. Then we learned about the Cuomo administration’s March 25 order that recovering coronavirus patients be placed into nursing homes. The mandate also barred nursing homes from requiring incoming patients “to be tested for COVID-19 prior to admission or readmission.”

That order stayed in effect for 46 days during which time over 6,000 patients with the virus were placed into these facilities housing our most vulnerable. To date, at least 6,500 of our most helpless seniors have been killed by the virus. Even the governor himself said the virus could sweep though nursing homes “like fire though dry grass.”

We had no idea until it was too late.

I couldn’t believe that this wasn’t a bigger story. Instead, there were puff piece interviews on “Good Morning America,” “CBS Sunday Morning,” “The Tonight Show” by Jimmy Fallon and People magazine. Instead of asking important questions about the nursing home tragedy, publications were focused on the governor’s love life.

The insensitivity of it was infuriating.

The death toll in our senior living facilities in New York alone was bigger than 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina combined. Where is the outrage?

Cuomo is desperate for a scapegoat.

There have been a few reporters over the few months since my in-laws’ deaths who have dared to ask Cuomo why he signed the deadly order. But, the man who said, “I assume full responsibility” and “If you are upset by what we have done, be upset at me,” has never taken that responsibility.

Instead, he’s blamed everyone and everything else: God, Mother Nature, the New York Post, the president, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and nursing care workers, claiming “they brought in the infection.” He even at one point appeared to blame those who had died:

“Older people, vulnerable people are going to die from this virus. That is going to happen despite whatever you do. Because with all our progress as a society, we can’t keep everyone alive.”

The governor’s arrogance and failure to own up to his catastrophic decisions are finally catching up to him. Not only is his sickening poster getting attention for being tone deaf, but recently, Cuomo’s state health department came under fire after releasing an internal report on the spread of COVID-19. It purports to exonerate Cuomo’s administration and instead blames health care workers for the staggering death toll. Now, New York state lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are calling for an independent investigation.

The fact that this governor refuses to accept responsibility for his actions makes our grief and anger far worse. I know I speak for many when I say we need a non-partisan investigation on both the state and federal level so that this never happens again.

This should not be about politics. It’s about accountability for what happened to our parents and grandparents, who trusted us to look out for them.

My in-laws Mickey and Dee Newman were New York tough. The governor? He’s as weak as they come.

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