TRENTON, N. J. (AP) — New Jersey-run veterans’ homes were unprepared to protect citizens from the COVID-19 outbreak and suffered a “systemic incapacity” to implement care, the U. S. Justice Department said in a published investigative report. Thursday.
In a scathing 43-page report, the Justice Department describes the errors in the Menlo Park and Paramus homes, bringing to light poor communication and a lack of capabilities that allowed the virus to spread “virtually unchecked in facilities. “
The report shows that even after the U. S. Department of Veterans AffairsWhen the U. S. Department of Military Affairs arrived in New Jersey in April 2020, the state’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs failed to implement its recommendations or reform infection control.
The state reached a $53 million settlement in 2021 to settle allegations of neglect and contribution to more than a hundred deaths at the two VA homes.
More than two hundred citizens of the houses have died because of the pandemic. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration came under fire in April 2020 when he ordered veterans’ homes not to turn away patients who tested positive, an order that was later rescinded.
A message seeking comment left in Murphy’s office.