Illinois veterans’ home COVID audit faults IDPH

| May 9, 2022

A performance audit from the Illinois state’s Auditor General found placed blame with the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) in its response to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at a state-run veterans home.

A November 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home resulted in 36 resident deaths.

At fault is Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Public Health department for failing to “identify and respond to the seriousness of the outbreak.”

OAM sends.

Audit blasts Pritzker administration for failed response to LaSalle Veterans’ Home COVID-19 outbreak that killed 36

Rick Pearson, Chicago Tribune

An Illinois state auditor general review of the COVID-19 outbreak that killed 36 elderly military veterans at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home in 2020 blames Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Public Health department for failing to “identify and respond to the seriousness of the outbreak.”

Department of Public Health officials didn’t show up at the LaSalle home until 11 days after the outbreak began on Nov. 1, 2020, even though department leaders had been receiving near daily updates on the deteriorating situation at the home, according to Auditor General Frank Mautino’s review, which was released Thursday.

The public health department’s visit came only after top agency staff members were told that Pritzker was “very concerned” and wanted them to go to the facility, the report said.

The health department’s failure to intervene quickly at the home after the outbreak had been detected was notable, the audit said, because “all but four” of the 36 “residents who died were positive prior to” the agency’s first site visit on Nov. 12, 2020.

Mautino’s review, requested by the General Assembly, also said an inspector general’s report ordered by Pritzker and released in April of last year that blamed management failures at both the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and the LaSalle home was too narrowly focused on the VA and largely excluded the public health department’s role in the crisis.

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Overall, the state audit points to a massive bureaucratic failure involving the administration’s response to the pandemic and the LaSalle deaths.

MSN

LaSalle Vet Home Audit A

Tip of the COVID iceberg. Thanks, OAM.

Category: COVID-19, Government Incompetence, Guest Post

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RGR 4-78

Just killing off some boomers, how very Major Berkley of them.

KoB

Taxahuchetts, Noo Yawk, Joirsey, and others say…”Hold muh beer and watch this.” Google Fooing the question of “How many Veterans died in nursing homes of COVID?” gave some very disturbing answers. The #s are in the Ks. The dodging of the answers and the data by states and the lack of reporting is even more disturbing. ‘Bout passed time to get pissed off about this deliberate biological warfare attack on the world.

And, you’re right RGR 4-78…Lars The Spapos Seagull…grins.

poetrooper

“And, you’re right RGR 4-78…Lars The Spapos Seagull…grins.”

King, ol’ Poe prefers to think he girlishly giggles 😜 

Ret_25X

Being from IL, this surprises me not at all. Killing the elderly and unborn are traditions as old as the secretary of state taking bribes and hiding money in shoeboxes under his bed.

SFC D

Think of it as a method of producing new democrat voters.

poetrooper

Absolutely amazing how many dead Republicans change political parties, isn’t it?

The Stranger

Well, there’s also the tradition of Illinois governors going to prison. I lived in Chicago for 13 years when I was young and single, but moved back home to Indiana when it came time to buy a house. I live pretty close to the state line, but you couldn’t pay me to live there again.

SgtBob

Got to understand that the purpose of many state “homes” is to provide jobs for people trained in checking the boxes, and nothing else.

troyez

Ol’ fat boy screwed Illinois’ veterans huh? I’m shocked. The LaSalle Veterans Home is an awful place and there have been horror stories about it for decades; sad thing is that the poorest of veterans in Illinois (especially those with no families) are sent there to die. Oh shit, I fit in that category! Hopefully when I get close to death I can wander off to the woods and die with some dignity, because it will not happen in that place.