Quinn does care about his constituents

To the Times: I strongly disagree with the letter to the editor written by Terry Rumsey in the May 21 edition of the Daily Times. State Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown, has been a pillar of the community and a speaker for the people of Delaware County. I know first hand that Rep. Quinn cares about all his constituents including the elderly.

My wife’s mother is a soon to be 82-year-old invalid. My wife chose not to put her in a nursing home or an assisted living facility after her father died. My wife tirelessly took care of her mother the last five years all by herself while working a full-time job. I saw my wife literally to the point of exhaustion working and taking care of her mother. I urged her to look into finding help.

I suggested that she contact our representative Chris Quinn.

My wife contacted Rep. Quinn’s office and the great staff and the representative himself put her in contact with help in the form of the County Office of Services for the Aging (COSA). There was a lot of paperwork involved and many steps to take in order for my wife to get help. She had to contact Rep. Quinn’s office a few times for guidance and each time they were more than helpful.

My wife now gets help five days a week while she is at work and this has helped her and our family greatly! Her stress level is much lower now and she can now have a piece of mind when she goes to work.

It’s sad that people like Terry Rumsey are very narrow minded and only focus on the COVID-19 virus and keeping the state closed. I guess he has not been out at all in the last 11 weeks to buy anything at Walmart, Acme, Home Depot, CVS, or any other service deemed essential by our incompetent governor. If so, he would have noticed the throngs of people patronizing these big-box retailers while the small business store owners have been put out of business.

I guess he also does not care about the 40 million people who are out of work now and can’t provide for their families. He will just blame our president for all this like people who think his way do. It’s also sad that it is more important to him to keep things shut down while a report from WebMD claims that this pandemic could lead to 75,000 additional deaths of despair from drug and alcohol misuse and suicide due to unemployment, social isolation, and fears about the virus.

A New York Times article on April 7 of this year claimed that New York had already seen an uptick in domestic violence and this was only three weeks in to the quarantine.

In closing, my heart goes out to all the victims of the COVID-19. From those who have lost their lives, their families, and the ones who have recovered. I wish I could go to church every Sunday to pray for these people but that has been taken away from us also. Every person in society matters. You can’t just say that only COVID-19 deaths matter and that no other social issue matters at the current time. These social issues have worsened under quarantine. Just as COVID-19 has grown exponentially, so has the unemployment rate, suicides, child abuse, domestic abuse, opioid abuse, etc. Focus now should be on disinfecting nursing homes and helping all of the elderly. Maybe even taking your loved one out of any elderly facility like our renowned Dr. Levine did with her mother.

It should also be on opening up society and abiding to wearing a mask and social distancing until a vaccine is discovered. I am confident that Rep. Quinn is doing a great job here in the county and trying to help all people during this pandemic. Like I mentioned earlier, I know this first hand.