Stay updated with breaking news from Beth ouimet. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
What an incredibly sad and moving story. Rest in peace Sailor! Your life included the sacrifice of time you protected us. You deserve your paradise now. Peace to your family. The system came up short for you and for them. We simply have to do better. Like you did. this is a tragically great story that puts a human face and voice on the what’s happened there. Truly heartbreaking to read, the tragedy of these deaths, these stories must be told as not to let any of what hspirged be forgotten. Thanks for posting this. Terrible situation at that facility. Some of the higher-ups were inept, didn’t take Covid-19 seriously or just did not care. ....
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. ....