How could this have happened? Twenty-one veterans at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke dead — with more deaths likely — amid a coronavirus outbreak in which 15 of them had tested positive for COVID-19. So far.
How could nearly a dozen of those deaths have occurred over a six-day span between March 25-30 before the public found out? Before the governor, the mayor and anyone else with the power to do something about it — besides the Massachusetts Department of Veterans’ Services that oversees the Soldiers’ Home — were informed.
Why did the facility’s Superintendent Bennett Walsh stay silent when the virus had clearly entered the 247-bed, state-run facility just a week after he told the Gazette in a statement that his staff was taking an “all hands on deck” approach and doing “everything possible to protect those who protected us”? And where was the state oversight that could have, at the very least, taken action against the spread of the COVID-19 virus within the walls of the facility as soon as the first positive case came in?
Yes, there’s grief and pain. But there’s also anger because it’s clear something went so terribly wrong. The state announced Friday that 59 veterans and 18 staff members at the Soldiers’ Home have tested positive for COVID-19, while 160 veterans tested negative.
Earlier this week, reporter Dusty Christensen interviewed two of the facility’s certified nurse assistants who described scenes of “complete chaos” at the home amid the outbreak, gross negligence on behalf of management and dangerous working conditions for staff. Among the allegations: allowing a patient with symptoms who was awaiting coronavirus test results to mingle in common areas on his unit; failing to isolate that patient’s roommates and to provide staff who had to treat him with proper protective equipment; crowding veterans from two units together on one floor after many employees fell ill; and intimidating and failing to listen to employees who raised concerns about hazardous conditions.
Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse appeared dismayed in a Facebook Live event on Tuesday when he announced that 11 deaths had occurred between March 25 and March 30.
“I was shocked on the phone call when the superintendent let me know that there had been eight veteran deaths between Wednesday and Sunday without any public notice, without any notification to our office and no notification to the state government that oversees the facility in the first place,” Morse said. “There was a clear lack of urgency on that phone call. We were repeatedly told these were people who had underlying health conditions.”
Gov. Charlie Baker has since launched an independent investigation into the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home to learn what happened and when, as well as “what didn’t happen and when it didn’t happen,” but the damage is done. Families have lost loved ones, and are continuing to lose loved ones, and no investigation or line of questioning can bring them back.
Still, investigating and questioning is of paramount importance. We must glean what we can from this tragedy. We must continue to ask questions and demand answers to make sure this fresh history doesn’t repeat itself. The governor’s office said this week that the investigation will focus both on the events inside the facility that led to the deaths of veterans as well as on management and organizational oversight of the COVID-19 response in the Soldiers’ Home.
The attorney leading the investigation must act quickly and interview everyone with ties to the Soldiers’ Home, from administrators to doctors and nurses to janitors and family members.
On Wednesday, Walsh released a statement in which he expressed “grief and sorrow” about the veterans who died and sympathy for their families. He said all of leadership’s decisions were informed by the available COVID-19 guidelines by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state Department of Public Health.
“At no time did I, or anyone on my staff, hide, conceal or mislead anyone regarding the tragic impact of the virus and it would be outrageous for anyone to even think of doing such a thing,” he said.
The state said Thursday that two residents at the Soldiers’ Home in Chelsea had died after testing positive for COVID-19, and 16 have tested positive for the virus. A nursing home in Norwood has seen 15 deaths of what staff members over a 12-day span believe were coronavirus infections or related complications, according to The Boston Globe. Officials also reported deaths at nursing homes in Greenfield, Littleton and Worcester.
Yet in the Chelsea case, state officials went out of their way to say that “The Chelsea Soldiers’ Home has consistently followed appropriate protocols regarding COVID-19 cases.”
The same has not been said about the Soldiers’ Home of Holyoke. That’s why the investigation is so important.
Unprecedented. It’s the word of the week, used to describe everything from the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic to the specific and painful ways it is changing daily life in the United States and the world. And while much about this current public health disaster is unprecedented — “NOVEL, UNEXAMPLED,” according to Merriam-Webster, “not done or experienced before” — the longer it drags on, the more precedents we see. If we care to look.
For all the mystery that surrounds the virus and the disease it causes, which manifests differently depending on the person, there is much about it that is known. We know that the novel coronavirus is particularly dangerous for people age 65 years and older; people who live in a nursing home or long-term care facility; and people of all ages with underlying medical conditions, according to the CDC. We know that in Washington state, the deadly virus had begun to spread through a nursing home by late February; by late March, it had infected two-thirds of residents and 47 workers and killed 35 people.
We knew that, and still, here in western Massachusetts, we failed to protect some of the most vulnerable, and valiant, among us.
We are now living in precedented times.