Sen. Sue Rezin | Rezin's Senate website
Sen. Sue Rezin | Rezin's Senate website
Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) is pushing three bills spurred by the 36 deaths at the LaSalle nursing home amid the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The bills have been lingering with little action in the Senate.
"As we near the end of the legislative session, I'm renewing my call to pass a series of legislative bills I introduced last year in response to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home, and Governor Pritzker's failure to implement critical recommendations from the Illinois auditor general's performance audit of the legionnaire's disease outbreak at the Quincy Veterans Home," Rezin said at a press conference in Springfield on Thursday.
The Human Services' department's report on the deaths said that the LaSalle home failed to create a task force for monitoring the outbreak, which ultimately led to confusion among the staff.
Rezin blames the deaths on negligence from the Pritzker Administration.
"This outbreak absolutely could have been avoided," Rezin said.
The three bills that Rezin is pushing are Senate Bill 1445, which would provide the inspector general subpoena powers in state investigations; Senate Bill 3170, which would require that a veterans home administrator provide written notification to IDPH and IDVA within 24 hours of learning of a second case of an infectious disease; and SB1471, which would require facilities licensed and operated by the state to conduct outbreak-related preparedness drills.
Two of the bills were introduced in February 2021, while one was introduced in January 2022.
The bills introduced in 2021 have remained stuck in the Senate's Assignments Committee for the entire past year because they have not yet been assigned to any substantive committee.
“I am asking Gov. Pritzker to publicly support these bills and call for their passage before the end of the session. Doing so will honor the obligation we have to our veterans and their families by solidifying into law the state’s responsibility to show up when veterans need them the most,” Rezin said.
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