Originally published on May 24, 2021 1:25 pm
Beth Ouimet thought she had lucked out in the summer of 2019 when her father got a placement in the state-run LaSalle Veterans’ Home after an episode of PTSD made it clear that living on his own wasn’t an option for the immediate future.
And even after COVID-19 hit Illinois and locked down the facility, Ouimet still was grateful her dad was there.
“I actually thought I was saving his life by keeping him at LaSalle,” Ouimet said.
But this past fall, the LaSalle Veterans’ Home became the site of one of the largest COVID outbreaks in any congregate care facility in Illinois. In the months that followed, multiple third-party inquiries into what went wrong at the LaSalle home found damning evidence of lapses in responsibility. High-level personnel were fired or forced to resign. Gov. JB Pritzker has promised changes at the facility and the state’s Department of Veterans Affairs.
(The Center Square) – The director of the Illinois Department of Public Health can’t recall if she had talked with the former director of the Department of Veterans Affairs during the peak of the deadly LaSalle Veteran’s Home COVID-19 .
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Lawmakers continue to learn new details about the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home. House members held two Veterans Affairs hearings over the past week. On Friday, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee asked about the errors and lack of communication leading to 36 residents dying.
Many still have questions about the response time at the LaSalle Home. Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) notes the facility had 171 COVID-19 cases before IDPH went to the home on November 12. Ten veterans had already died by that point in the outbreak.
Deputy Governor Sol Flores admits the administration should ve done more to prevent the loss of life. Reflecting on the situation, Flores said she would ve wanted the state to have a team at the facility sooner. However, blame has shifted back to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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SPRINGFIELD Both parties agreed Friday that the handling of the COVID-19 outbreak that left 36 residents dead at the LaSalle Veterans Home was a mess but they disagreed sharply on who was to blame.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration again pointed at former state Veterans Affairs Director Linda Chapa LaVia, contending she misled them into thinking she was adequately addressing the problems.
But Republicans lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Democratic governor, arguing the failure to take swift action as the crisis unfolded and the attempts to pass the buck indicated “a failure of leadership” at the top.