To the Editor:

I am writing to urge Governor Andrew Cuomo not to allow the cutting of reimbursement rates for agencies that are fiscal intermediaries for the Consumer Direct Personal Assistant Program.

Caregivers (personal assistants) will be getting fewer work hours and reduced pay, down to minimum wage.

Many of us caregivers are assisting persons that may need help 24/7 and may well be on their deathbed through no fault of their own. They must not be left unattended.

A nursing home may be the answer financially but what about the clients’ approach, their families, their lifelong environment, their dignity?

Obviously, the governor has not read the book “On Death and Dying” by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, or he would not be thinking this way.

Are we not supposed to be united as a family, as in the United States of America, as a whole and not divided and conquered?

Why are we helping people in other countries when we have to cut back and hurt our own native citizens to accomplish this? Are we not important any more?

Nicholas Dudley

U.S. Air Force

Altamont