Kendall County Times

Following a COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home that led to 36 deaths, a study by state agencies and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) concluded all four state-run veterans homes lack standardized infection prevention policies.

The lack of policies exists despite previous audits that cited the need for the state to develop standardized policies, according to coverage by the Herald and Review. State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) said that the state dropped the ball in not following the directions issued after past audits.

“The findings of the Interagency Infection Prevention Project reiterates the sad reality that the Pritzker Administration ignored and overlooked the Illinois Auditor General’s audit of the Quincy Veterans’ Home Legionaries’ disease outbreak that was presented to the Administration in May of 2019,” Rezin said in a Facebook post.

Rezin said that the failure to establish protocols may have contributed to the number of veterans who died in LaSalle.

“We could have prevented this tragedy and saved lives at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home if this Administration had been on-site within three days at the beginning of the November COVID-19 outbreak to ensure that CDC guidelines had been properly implemented and enforced,” she said.

Though the the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs (IDVA) and Illinois Department of Public Health (DPH) have collaborated with the VA to form the Interagency Infection Prevention Project (IIPP), which issued the report, Rezin said that the past recalcitrance of the state up to this point necessitates action by lawmakers.

“This report reinforces the fact that the Illinois General Assembly must take action in order to ensure that these critical recommendations are finally implemented,” Rezin said.

The report, based off of a May 2019 audit, was created only recently by the three agencies as part of the collaborative Interagency Infection Prevention Project. While individual homes have implemented some improvements since the audit was completed, there is still no state-level standard.

The three agencies began collaboration on instituting better policies and procedures for responding to and preventing outbreaks of infectious diseases at veterans homes following the November 2020 incident involving the LaSalle Veterans Home in which 36 residents died following an outbreak of COVID-19, the Herald and Review Reported. While infection rates have since dropped, two other veterans homes – Quincy and Manteno – also experienced (respectively) 24 and 19 coronavirus deaths.