NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday met with family members of those who died in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic to apologize for the Andrew Cuomo administration's handling of their care, Hochul’s office confirmed.
Hochul joined Queens State Assemblyman Ron Kim for the closed-door meeting in Manhattan, where the Kim and family members requested a host of eldercare reforms, the New York Post first reported.
"Governor Hochul is committed to transparency and restoring trust in government, and she looks forward to working with Assemblymember Kim on these priorities,” Hazel Crampton-Hays, a spokeswoman for Hochul, in a statement.
“On her first day in office, the Governor disclosed additional nursing home data, and she will continue to deliver transparency to New Yorkers on the impact of COVID-19 on nursing homes,” she said. “Governor Hochul's deep sympathy is with the families whose loved ones have been lost to the pandemic, and she appreciates Assemblymember Kim's dedication to these important issues."
Hochul at briefing Wednesday said, "I apologized for the pain that those poor families had to endure as a result of them contracting COVID in nursing homes."
The families had a list of demands including a full accounting of nursing home deaths and a bill creating a nursing home victim's compensation fund.
Hochul promised to do everything she could.
"This is not a one off," she said. "I hold myself accountable. This is not just a, you know, it wasn't a photo op. We didn't tell the press. I don't need a press conference to do the right thing and that's what we did."
Kim told the Post the meeting was “very emotional” and a “genuine, empathetic moment.” Families had been looking for such a meeting since Hochul took office in August, he said.
“It was obviously a private apology, but I think it really touched the families. That’s something they’ve been asking for — to be treated decently as human beings,” Kim told the Post.
Fox News meteorologist and advocate Janice Dean was among the family members in attendance. Dean had lost her mother and father-in-law to the virus early on during the outbreak last year.
Alexa Rivera, the co-founder of the advocacy group Voices for Seniors, was also present.
“For the first time since we began or quest for accountability on behalf of our families that died from Covid in nursing homes last spring, we met today with @GovKathyHochul,” Dean wrote on Twitter. “It was a small step but an important one to get answers. It would not have happened without @rontkim.”
In a follow-up tweet, Dean thanked Hochul and slammed Cuomo for giving the families a cold shoulder while he was in office.
“@andrewcuomo never even acknowledged us, and instead blamed everyone else. We’ll keep pushing for transparency no matter what,” she wrote.
The Assembly’s Judiciary Committee is currently probing the disgraced former governor’s handling of nursing home fatality data during the pandemic after it was revealed his administration withheld death figures from the public.
Following two bombshell reports from the Post and the Associated Press that the Cuomo administration had undercounted nursing home deaths, his administration admitted to withholding such data over fears of retaliation from then-President Donald Trump’s administration.
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