HOLYOKE — Less than five months after a state audit detailed significant neglect at the Veterans Home at Holyoke between 2020 and 2023 — much of it during the COVID-19 pandemic — Gov. Maura Healey on Wednesday highlighted what her administration says is a dramatic turnaround at the facility.
Shortly after a tour of the facility at 110 Cherry St. Wednesday afternoon, Healey pointed out at a press conference that the veterans home has nearly doubled its nursing staff, significantly lowered its hospitalization rate and transformed the facility into one of “the strongest long-term skilled nursing facilities in the nation.”
Healey joined Mayor Joshua Garcia, Veterans Services Secretary Eric Goralnick, Veterans Home at Holyoke Executive Director Michael Lazo and Director of Nursing Kelly Joneson on the tour where she met U.S. Navy veteran John Hoar, who gifted her one of his paintings.
Hoar, 74, said that he has lived in a variety of nursing homes throughout the state, but found the level of service and care he received at the Veterans Home at Holyoke over the last 18 months to be of the highest quality.
“I had given [Healey] a painting that I had done as just a gesture of appreciation for all the work she’s doing, and looking forward to what’s going to be next. I hope to be around for it,” Hoar said. “I’ve had a very bad stroke, but I’ve come back quite a bit … I’ve been to a bunch of nursing homes but here, I get top-notch care. It’s far superior here.”
The home’s progress came after State Auditor Diana DiZoglio released a 33-page audit in January that examined both the Holyoke location and the Veterans Home at Chelsea. The auditor said at the time that she intended to pursue litigation against Healey to compel the production of various documents and records connected to the deaths of at least 76 veterans living at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home during a COVID-19 outbreak in 2020.
The Executive Office of Veterans Services, in January, released a statement explaining that the audit largely covers a time that predates Healey’s inauguration in January 2023 as successor to Gov. Charlie Baker.
In the press conference that followed the tour this week, Healey referenced the home’s COVID-era conditions as the impetus for her administration’s investments in veterans’ services and the appointment of the state’s first-ever cabinet-level secretary of veterans services.
“What happened here in 2020 during COVID was an absolute travesty. It was a tragedy — there was a lot of, a lot of loss,” Healey said. “I was your attorney general for the time. I was here for it, and I promised that I would do whatever I could to make that better.”
The governor said one of her administration’s early missions was to make sure the state was doing everything it could to turn around the veterans homes. “I’m proud to say that today, as we gather here, Holyoke is one of the top-rated veterans homes in the entire United States,” she said.
Healey touted the facility’s rapid and substantial improvements, claiming that it received a nearly perfect score from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). She spoke of the facility’s ratio of registered nurse hours per patient per day, which she said was 1.36 nurses, more than double the national average of 0.59.
The governor also cited high rates of reported veteran satisfaction with the facility and below-average hospitalization rates. While Healey’s office reported that on average 1.82 veteran residents nationwide are hospitalized every 1,000 days, the Veterans Home at Holyoke hospitalized an average of 0.99 residents every 1,000 days.
” [The Healey administration] made a promise, and they kept the promise to take our veterans to the next level,” Goralnick said. “You can see it in the faces of all these veterans and our residents that have been cared for. What makes this place special are the people, it’s not the building … it’s [those] that are bedside, taking in the residents, putting in work every single day.”
State officials also spoke of the home’s upcoming move into a new $405 million facility, which is expected this fall.
“The Legislature approved the funding for our veterans homes here and in Chelsea, and our congressional delegation … We’ve worked to make sure at every step that this work is completed without delay and at the highest quality,” Healey said. “Thanks to that focus, the new home at Holyoke will open this fall, and we’re really, really excited about that. Our veterans will have a beautiful new living space, and this first-class staff will have a world-class facility to work in, but even now, before the final construction is finished, this home has been transformed.”
