I was disappointed to read Valley News editor Maggie Cassidy’s very long March 14 column, “D-H fails COVID-19 communication test,” and with the Valley News for publishing it.
I tend to agree with Cassidy’s concerns about Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s handling of the specific matter she references, but no matter how we may feel about about how D-H or any other complex health care facility is doing these days, this is not the time to pile on with criticism. There will be plenty of time for critiques once we get to the other side of this crisis.
All health care facilities and their workers — including all staff who now have to also deal with having children out of school, no child care, lack of sick leave or lack of medical supplies to keep them safe while they care for us — deserve our support right now.
If someone sees a major breach of care, trust or communication, please take it to the proper authorities, not to the press or social media.
A little kindness and patience is in order right now. I hope the Valley News will do better in the weeks ahead.
DICK MARK
Grantham
Bravo to Valley News editor Maggie Cassidy for her column (“D-H fails COVID-19 communication test,” March 14). Dartmouth-Hitchcock CEO Joanne Conroy’s word’s of “communicate, communicate, communicate” ring hollow when the top officials practice, “evade, evade, evade” about matters regarding COVID-19.
Confidence in our major medical institution at a critical time sadly just took a major hit.
RALPH W. MUECKENHEIM
Windsor
We have entered uncharted waters now that the coronavirus has invaded our shores. The rate of infection in the U.S. is escalating rapidly and the death toll is mounting.
Trillions of dollars in retirement savings and other investments were devoured in a less than a week, and this only the beginning.
One of the most terrifying aspects of this threat to global public health and economic stability is President Donald J. Trump. He squandered valuable time that should have been used to prepare for this viral onslaught. Instead, he wasted weeks contemplating the consequences that sounding the alarm would have on the stock market, and hence his reelection prospects.
It was only after the markets collapsed that Trump began to take the viral invasion seriously.
Even Trump’s most ardent supporters should be alarmed by the president’s Oval Office effort to calm a shaken nation. Far from demonstrating that his hands were steady on the tiller, Trump’s aides had to be dispatched immediately afterward to clarify the president’s folly of a speech.
In yet another inexcusable breach, our European allies were blindsided by the announcement that we were further tightening our borders. The stock market didn’t even wait for the conclusion of Trump’s odious remarks before plummeting. The Rose Garden press conference two days later was equally appalling.
After our self-declared “stable genius” announced that his declaration of a national emergency included “two very big words,” he attempted to cover his ineptitude by hiding behind corporate executives to tout some vague public-private partnership that was only necessary because of his administration’s abject failures.
The true measure of just how small a man Trump is was illuminated when he rejected any responsibility for his administration’s failed testing program and then professed ignorance about his dissolution of the National Security Council’s Directorate for Global Health Security and Biodefense.
From the moment he was inaugurated, the incompetence of the Trump administration has served as a rich source of material for late-night talk show hosts.
His incompetence, however, is no longer funny.
It is now a matter of life and death.
MARK LATHAM
Hartford