McHenry Times

Sen. Don DeWitte (R-West Dundee) has asked the General Assembly to hold hearings and demand  answers from the Pritzker administration regarding alleged mismanagement at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home.

Inside the state-run veterans' home in LaSalle, 36 veterans died in the fall of 2020 due to COVID. An investigation by the Office of Auditor General has been released that sheds light on how the facility was managed at the time. 

"The Auditor General's report also indicated that the DHS Inspector General's report, ordered and limited in investigative scope by the Governor, was incorrect when it found that the outbreak wasn't being meaningfully tracked by IDVA, as IDPH and the Deputy Governor for Health & Human Services were provided daily detailed information, which was in fact being used in the IDPH Director's daily briefings at the time," DeWitte posted on his website. "This report justifies the skepticism that Republican lawmakers had when the Governor chose to use one of his appointees to conduct an investigation and why it was important to have the independent Auditor General review the state's response. I also believe that the General Assembly must hold legislative hearings to demand answers from the Pritzker Administration."

CBS2 News, spoke to the families of the affected. Lindsay Lamb, the granddaughter of Richard Cieski Sr., who died at the facility, described her grandfather as "a loving, gentle, caring family man who didn't deserve to die the way that he did." 

The auditor general's new report states that even though the deaths were caused by COVID, the facility was extremely mismanaged. "Although the Illinois Department of Public Health… officials were informed of the increasing positive cases almost on a daily basis… IDPH did not identify and respond to the seriousness of the outbreak." the auditor wrote, reported CBS2 News. "All but four residents who died were positive prior to the date of the IDPH site visit."

Gov. Pritzker has already addressed the report and he said, “There is no way that you can see across 50,000-plus people in your government – as governor - exactly what everybody is doing.”