00:00I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much.
00:09Oh, I love that. She's telling me she loves me. I used to go visit her every day, every other day. It was so, I just, it was nice.
00:30I get this call from the doctor, and it's weird because the doctor never called. Never called. Never called. So I, I mean, I knew something was up, but I figured, no, he goes, I'm sorry, you know, your mom is not going to make it.
00:56Her respiration is bad, and her blood pressure is low, and she had a fever a couple days ago.
01:05My sister called me after she got that call from the doctor, hysterical. I could barely understand what she was saying, telling me, the doctor called, said mom's not going to, not going to make it.
01:21She was laying in her bed.
01:23My kids were there with her.
01:26Having trouble breathing. She didn't have a mask. I held her hand, and I told her over and over how much I loved her, how much Ada and Sammy loved her, and how much, how she is the best mother in the world.
01:44They didn't allow me, nor my brother.
01:46Their director of social work, the social worker, the security guards, they said, you cannot go up.
01:53It was only after the fact, afterwards, that we learned that the Centers for Medicare Services, the federal government said, which all facilities have to follow those guidelines, that if it's an end of life situation, you let families in to say goodbye.
02:10And we didn't know that then.
02:11If we knew, we would have said, you have to follow the guidelines, you have to let us in.
02:18And my brother and I, we have no closure. All we saw is a casket.
02:23She got a phone call less than six hours later, around 11 p.m., saying, your mother has passed.
02:32That is by far the worst day of my life.
02:41NBC News has now confirmed the FBI and a U.S. agent have been arrested.
02:46NBC News has now confirmed the FBI and a U.S. attorney are investigating the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's handling of data on his son's death.
03:07NBC News has now confirmed the FBI and a U.S. attorney are investigating the New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's handling of data on nursing home COVID deaths.
03:18A top Cuomo aide told Democrats in a secret meeting in Albany that, yes, the Cuomo administration did hold back nursing home death figures because they were worried about a possible Trump Justice Department investigation.
03:30We should have provided more information faster. We were too focused on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment, and we did not do a good enough job in providing information. I take total responsibility for that.
04:00We should have provided more information faster. We were too focused on doing the job and addressing the crisis of the moment, and we did not do a good enough job in providing information faster. I take total responsibility for that.
04:17Hello, my name is Ida Pavey. This is my sister, Katie Pavey. Our mother died as well.
04:25On March 25th, COVID-positive patients were sent to nursing homes. It only makes sense that if you place COVID-positive patients into a nursing home, it's going to spread like wildfire.
04:38I was sitting next to my wife when the doctor told her she passed away. I'm not a political person. I just want answers, and I want changes. This should not happen. What's going to happen in the next crisis, a health crisis?
04:57It was hard to move on. We couldn't move on because that was the only thing that was in the media, in the news. Nursing homes, seniors dying.
05:11I blame Cuomo, and I blame Isabella. Cuomo, 100%.
05:17I made complaints to the Department of Health, to the Attorney General's Office, to Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, to Health and Human Services. Anybody that would listen to me, I made complaints.
05:30And nothing has come out of that besides just the report in regards to Isabella. That place should have been shut down immediately, and it's still in business. And so I hope that there's some accountability, or watch someone that keeps an eye on that place, because it's all about money.
05:51So during that time, you know, we're grieving. We're looking for a way to grieve. We found, I read an article in a newspaper, and I read about this group called Voices for Seniors.
06:03I want to be able to mourn with other family members and be able to share our story, but it's not just sharing our story. We have to make things better for our future seniors. It's going to be us someday. It's going to be our aunts and uncles. We need to protect them and their future, and the nursing home system needs some reforms.
