Illinois Valley Times

State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) blames the Pritzker Administration for its failure to implement audit recommendations which resulted in deaths and COVID-19 infections at the LaSalle Veterans Home.

Rezin said 36 LaSalle Veterans Home residents succumbed to the disease.

A 2019 audit report from the Illinois Auditor General listed recommendations for the Illinois Departments of Public Health (IDPH) and Veterans Affairs (IDVA) which included ensuring a timely response for on-site assistance, improving communications between IDPH and IDVA, and implementing CDC recommendations following a confirmed outbreak.

“It’s the Pritzker Administration’s responsibility to ensure the safety of our veterans, but key recommendations from the Illinois Auditor General’s report were ignored, which led to fatal errors by the administration in their response to the deadly COVID outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home,” Rezin stated.

State public health officials were requested to be on-site when there were only five COVID cases and zero deaths, but no one arrived until day 12 when cases had increased to 171 and 10 deaths.

“The administration had nine months to implement these recommendations before the pandemic began, yet they failed to do so with devastating consequences. The governor must explain why his agencies failed to implement the audit’s recommendation,” Rezin continued.

Rezin said her Senate Bill 2251, which would require IDVA and IDPH to perform an on-site visit within one business day of being notified of an outbreak, could prevent these failures from reoccurring.