Rezin Wants Answers from Pritzker Administration

Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) says a scathing report into failures at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home that led to 36 COVID-19 deaths requires the Governor’s office to explain its actions.

State Senator Sue Rezin (R-Morris) wants to know why the Pritzker administration, from Deputy Governor Sol Flores down to the Department of Public Health and Department of Veterans’ Affairs were so slow in responding to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans’ Home.

Rezin, who represents the LaSalle facility, has been one of the leading voices for more transparency for the failures to stop the quick spread of COVID-19 in the facility, which killed dozens of veterans in just a couple of weeks.

Following an investigative report released Friday, Rezin says it shows the Pritzker administration failed to implement recommended changes in an Auditor General’s report of a Legionnaire’s outbreak at the Quincy home that could have helped prevent spread of COVID in LaSalle.

“My frustration is the fact that the Governor’s administration had an entire year before COVID to implement the recommendations he and Dr. Ezike received from the Quincy Auditor General’s report and they chose not to implement those recommendations,” she said. “It [leaves me in] complete and utter disbelief.”

Rezin has filed legislation to implement three changes outlined in the Auditor General report, including more a timely inspection after the outbreak. It took close to two weeks before IDPH staff visited the home, while the disease spread like wildfire among residents.

Other legislation is to adhere by CDC guidelines when the outbreak began, which would have corrected staff not wearing proper PPE or improper hand sanitizer being used. Another calls for better communication between the Governor’s office and the agencies he oversees.

“I cannot underscore the lack of communication that we saw in this report between the departments,” Rezin said. [IDPH] needs to answer questions about what they were doing in the year before this pandemic started. And they should not get let off the hook. Their lack of implementation, their disregard, has caused the breakdown we saw at the Veterans’ Home.”

Rezin said a Freedom of Information Act request showed only five e-mails between the Department of Veterans’ Affairs and Governor’s office during the outbreak.

When Senate Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Sen. Tom Cullerton (D-Villa Park) launches hearings into the report, Rezin says she wants the committee to demand testimony from the Pritzker administration.

“If you look at the breakdown on every level, this has been a disaster,” Rezin said.