'I...Thought I Was Saving His Life': Families Of LaSalle Vet

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. 

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