The sister of actor Matthew Broderick said she received preferential treatment at a California hospital while battling the coronavirus.
Janet Broderick, a pastor at All Saints Episcopal Church in Beverly Hills, was hospitalized last month after falling ill upon returning from a conference in Kentucky. She has since recovered and is back home.
Broderick told New York Magazine that her general practitioner didn't know about her famous familial connection and "didn't care very much." But that changed when the pastor went to an emergency room at a Beverly Hills hospital.
"As soon as I got ahold of the guy at the hospital who knew who Matthew was, I was given the name of the head of the emergency room," she said. "Well, trust me, the folks I've spent my lifetime working with in Jersey City would never have been given the name of the head of the emergency room. If they were, it would have been disregarded."
"I think I'm absolute living proof that this system is completely corrupt," she told the outlet.
Last month, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio chastised the Brooklyn Nets after the team announced that four of their players were among an unknown number of team members tested for the coronavirus. Three of the four were not showing symptoms of the coronavirus.
In a tweet, de Blasio said he wishes the team a quick recovery, "but, with all due respect, an entire NBA team should NOT get tested for COVID-19 while there are critically ill patients waiting to be tested."
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he understood the mayor's point, but defended the league.
"It's unfortunate we're at this position as a society where it's a triage when it comes to testing," he said in an interview with ESPN's "SportsCenter."
Broderick told New York Magazine that it breaks her heart to know she received special treatment and hopes "this causes us to take some kind of look at how we are handling medicine in this country."
Broderick's bout with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, began in early March when she began experiencing body aches and swollen glands. Her symptoms soon developed into a dry cough and fogginess.
On March 9, she went with her daughter to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was given a coronavirus test, which would later come back positive.
Broderick told the outlet she was eventually transferred to the hospital's intensive care unit and was given a breathing tube. Her temperature climbed to 102 degrees, she said.
“I was very, very sick,” she said, telling New York Magazine that she thought she was going to die. “I could tell I was actually in big trouble.”
Eventually, Broderick began to recover and after spending six days in the hospital, she was allowed to leave and quarantine at home.