Audit: Pritzker administration didn’t respond to seriousness of vets home COVID outbreak

[May 06, 2022] By Greg Bishop | The Center Square

(The Center Square) – Despite spending more than $1.1 million for personal protective equipment, testing and infrastructure in the months leading up to the November 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans' Home that killed 36 residents there, the Pritzker administration didn’t identify and respond to the seriousness of the situation, an audit report released Thursday says.

In April 2021, the Illinois House ordered the Illinois Auditor General to review the outbreak that took the lives of 36 veterans and sickened dozens of staff and residents in the state’s care.

“From the documents reviewed, [Illinois Department of Public Health] officials did not offer any advice or assistance as to how to slow the spread at the Home, offer to provide additional rapid COVID-19 tests, and were unsure of the availability of the antibody treatments for long-term care settings prior to being requested by the [Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs] Chief of Staff,” the reports key findings said.

The report found taxpayers covered millions of dollars for isolation rooms, testing and personal protective equipment.

“In total, the cost for all infrastructure improvements from March 2020 through June 2021 totaled $1,162,719,” the report said. “The State expended approximately $3.4 million between FY20 and FY21 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home. … Auditors concluded that the outbreak did not significantly add to the Home’s overall COVID-19-related costs during FY20 and FY21.”

A breakdown of that spending shows more than $1.1 million was spent before the outbreak; $421,484 on PPE, $97,323 on infrastructure improvements and $633,034 on COVID-19 testing.
 

After the audit’s release, Gov. J.B. Pritzker, without naming names, blamed Republicans for what he said was their questioning of COVID-19 mitigation measures.

“You know all the people, the people who represented the area, the Republicans in general, you heard many of them, and some of them are still saying it even now, that ‘you didn’t need to wear a mask, don’t worry about it,’” Pritzker, a Democrat, said. “Some of them aren’t even vaccinated or have chosen to tell other people they don’t need to get vaccinated. We were fighting all of that and the pandemic.”

Vaccines weren’t yet released at the time of the outbreak in 2020.

State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, represents the area and said Pritzker’s lack of accountability and transparency is “astounding.”

“The fact that the governor … continues to blame the Republicans, to me, just tells you where this administration is,” Rezin told The Center Square. “There’s no accountability. There’s no transparency. And at the end of the day, we had 30% of our veterans die at this veterans' home because of this outbreak that could have been managed much better by the Department of Public Health.”

"IDPH and the First Assistant Deputy Governor for Health & Human Services were provided detailed emails of COVID-19 positive cases and related deaths for each of the four State veterans’ homes by IDVA on November 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 12th, and 13th [2020]," the audit found.

Pritzker was asked if he’s taking responsibility for the outbreak. He said the state agencies under his control are his responsibility.

“But there’s no way that you can see across 50,000-plus people in your government as governor exactly what everyone is doing," Pritzker said. "That’s why we focused this effort at finding out what happened at this agency.”

Thursday’s Auditor General report ordered by the House noted an Illinois Department of Human Services Office of Inspector General report the governor ordered after the outbreak.

“The primary finding of the DHS OIG report, which indicated the ‘absence of any standard operating procedures in the event of a COVID-19 outbreak,’ was flawed,” the auditor’s report found. “Auditors identified hundreds of pages of guidance provided by IDPH and by the Centers for Disease Control.”

Rezin said Pritzker’s handling of the entire case is unacceptable.

“This is an example of complete and utter failure at the level of the governor and his deputy governor who ignored what was going on at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home and waited over 12 days before they did an on-site visit,” Rezin said.

Rezin said there needs to be further hearings into Pritzker’s handling of the outbreak.

The audit recommends a variety of policy changes, including ensuring procedures are in place that mandate timely testing, define roles for monitoring outbreaks and fill a vacant Senior Home Administrator position.

Greg Bishop reports on Illinois government and other issues for The Center Square. Bishop has years of award-winning broadcast experience and hosts the WMAY Morning Newsfeed out of Springfield.