Cuomo invites probe of harassment claim
New York’s attorney general said she’s moving forward with an investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Gov. Andrew Cuomo after receiving a letter from his office Monday authorizing her to take charge of the probe.
The referral letter allows Attorney General Letitia James to deputize an outside law firm to conduct the inquiry with full subpoena power. When the investigation is finished, the findings will be disclosed in a public report, the letter said.
James, in a statement announcing she received the letter, said: “This is not a responsibility we take lightly as allegations of sexual harassment should always be taken seriously.”
Two women who’ve worked for Cuomo have come forward to accuse him of sexual harassment.
The governor, a Democrat, acknowledged for the first time Sunday that some of his behaviour with women “may have been insensitive or too personal,” and said he would co-operate with the attorney general’s investigation.
Cuomo addressed the allegations in a statement and has not been seen in public since last Wednesday. He maintained he had never inappropriately touched or propositioned anyone. But he said he had teased people about their personal lives in an attempt to be “playful.”
“I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal and that some of my comments, given my position, made others feel in ways I never intended. I acknowledge some of the things I have said have been misinterpreted as an unwanted flirtation. To the extent anyone felt that way, I am truly sorry about that,” he said.
The letter authorizing James’ investigation said that all state employees have been directed to co-operate fully with the review. Cuomo senior adviser Beth Garvey penned the letter and said she would facilitate interviews with witness and requests for documents from Cuomo’s office.
The referral came after a weekend of wrangling over who should investigate his workplace behaviour. First, Cuomo’s office said it would ask a former federal judge to conduct the probe. Then, it suggested James and the state’s top judge work together to appoint outside counsel to look into the matter.
Finally, on Sunday, Cuomo acquiesced to James’ demands to take control the inquiry.
The pandemic has pointed out some of the weaknesses — if not, in some cases, outright failure — of health-care systems on both sides of the border.
The sobering number of deaths in the U.S. is a significant marker of the almost universal ineptitude of the Trump administration.
And there have been countless stories of how some physicians and hospitals tried to gouge COVID-19 patients for simple tests or readily available treatments.
And, of course, the fact many Americans still don’t have access to quality health care when needed because they have no universal health insurance is a scandal that demands action.
We in Canada continue to have our problems. As in the United States, where some states have done well and others have flamed out, delivery of public health services is governed by the provinces and territories, so there is no unified national approach to dealing with the virus, not even in the administration of the program of vaccination.
Thankfully we have universal health coverage without the constant bickering characteristic of the relationships between private U.S. insurance firms and private American hospitals run as profit centres.
It is important to stipulate that the challenges in dealing with the pandemic have been unprecedented. Under normal conditions, the health-care system mostly responds to patients demanding care when they experience health problems.
But with the urgent need for millions of vaccinations in a short period of time, that process is being reversed. Priorities for vaccination must be established. The health-care system has to proactively locate those at greatest risk (generally the elderly and those with co-morbidities) and make arrangements for their vaccinations as soon as supply allows – or risk unnecessary deaths and blistering criticism. We are all grateful that, in B.C., seniors in care have now mostly received at least their first shots.
In anticipation of much higher volumes when vaccines are made available to the broader public (in most provinces, the under80s or under-75s), the logistics planning becomes even more challenging. Vaccine centres must be set up. There may be a need to train the small army needed to administer the jabs. The provinces have to work their way through all adult population cohorts in order, getting each group signed up for appointments so lengthy line-ups are avoided. Setting up return appointments for second doses is also required.
This is harder than it looks and few in government have a lot of relevant experience of working this way under great pressure of time. Phone services must be able to deal with large numbers of calls from those who are unconnected to the internet or who just want to talk to a real person about their concerns.
Computer systems, for those able to sign up online, need to be able to withstand tidal waves of people all wanting to get critical information and make their appointments.
Some provinces are handling the entire project well and others appear to have been caught flat-footed or slow to respond.
Alberta’s experience with crashing websites and jammed phone lines last week is a cautionary tale. Hopefully the bumps will be ironed out and the vast majority of adult Canadians will receive their shots by September — or many political careers will suffer.
There is a portion of the population that has decided not to get the shots for whatever reason. If their numbers are too great, vaccine refusal will severely hamper our hopes of controlling the virus. Public health officials and health-care workers have been reporting the benefits of vaccination and spelling out the risks for those who decide to not get vaccination. Both the federal and provincial governments will need to mount substantial information campaigns in favour of vaccination.
Finally, there will need to be a detailed review of how the health-care system and both governments and the private sector performed during the pandemic. Such a review will point out what needs to be done now so that we as a nation will be better able to address the challenges of the next pandemic. We should all have no doubt there will be another pandemic at some future date, it’s just a question of when.