State Senator Sue Rezin (R-Morris) released the following statement on today’s House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing regarding the LaSalle Veterans’ Home outbreak:
“The residents of the LaSalle Veterans’ Home as well as their families deserve answers about how this catastrophic outbreak happened, and they deserve them now. Today’s hearing was an important step in finding those answers. However, there are many questions that have yet to be answered. We need more hearings.
“We still don’t know why it took 12 days for an on-site inspection to be conducted by the Illinois Department of Public Health. This deadly delay meant that almost two full weeks went by where ineffective infection control protocols continued uncorrected – including the use of ineffective hand sanitizer. During that 12-day gap, cases skyrocketed from 4 to 171.
“As of today, this tragedy sits at over 200 cases and has cost the lives of 33 of our nation’s veterans. What has happened at this veterans’ home is unacceptable. We have to determine how this happened and ensure that it does not happen again.”