Deputy Governor, IDPH Director Blame Veterans' Affairs Dept. for LaSalle Outbreak

The House Veterans’ Affairs Committee held the first hearing into a scathing Inspector General report into the COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home in November.

Both the Deputy Governor who oversees the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs and the Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health pointed the finger directly at former IDVA staff for the COVID-19 outbreak that killed 36 residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home last year.

“What I was told was happening there was a far cry from the circumstances set forth in the IG’s report,” said Deputy Governor Sol Flores, who testified Thursday before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

Flores oversees 10 state agencies, including both IDVA, IDPH, and the Department of Human Services, which produced a scathing report last month critical of the failures at the home that prevented staff at the home from getting the outbreak under control.

But numerous lawmakers were frustrated with Flores and the Governor’s office for lack of involvement once the outbreak began.

In her testimony, Flores repeatedly said the Governor’s office acted “immediately” to control the outbreak, though it took 12 days for investigators to be dispatched to the facility.

“When you’re talking about ‘immediately,’ I usually think of immediately as ‘right now,” said Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst). “You’re using ‘immediately’ to cover time periods that are, like, 11 days.”

Numerous lawmakers pressed Flores as to why the Senior Homes Administrator position has gone unfilled for more than a year. The job description requires nursing home management experience. A candidate for the job was rejected by the Governor’s administration in 2019. Flores said the candidate picked by IDVA had multiple disparaging remarks about people receiving welfare on social media channels and had made other posts that were viewed as racist.

“We believed that this was an inappropriate candidate to serve in this leadership role,” she said.

Rep. Lance Yednock (D-Ottawa), who represents the facility, said he wasn’t satisfied the agency hadn’t yet hired the position.

“That’s really a [problem] right now for me,” he said. “I see that as a management issue, and it still hasn’t been filled yet and we’re still in the midst of a pandemic.”

Flores says IDVA is currently vetting candidates and expect to hire a candidate “soon.”

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, Director of the Illinois Department of Public Health defended her agency’s delay in investigating the outbreak at the facility.

“At the beginning of pandemic people were doing what they were supposed to be doing. And we saw that. And, then, it stopped,” Ezike said. “And I can’t speak to at what moment or why those things happened. But what I can say is that they were directly responsible for not implementing those COVID-19 guidelines. That is what contributed to the deaths.”

She said investigators weren’t dispatched to the facility until IDVA asked.

“We believed that the home was following all the recommended protocols and that the appropriate steps were being taken to address the cases.

Numerous IDVA staffers, including former Director Linda Chapa LaVia and the former director of the Home have either resigned or been fired from their positions.

But Mazzochi called Ezike’s reaction to the outbreak “disturbingly passive.”

Numerous lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were frustrated with both Flores and Ezike at times. At one point, Mazzochi accused Ezike of “filibustering” to take up her time for questioning.

Both Flores and Ezike are scheduled to testify before a Senate committee today.