SOLDIERS’ HOME CHIEF PUTS UP PAPER TRAIL
Refutes delay in notifying officials of virus outbreak
The suspended superintendent of the Holyoke Soldiers Home where 76 veterans have now died of coronavirus is doubling down on his claims that he alerted state officials about the outbreak days before they say he did — with his attorney providing a paper trail Tuesday to back it up.
William Bennett, the uncle of soldiers’ home Superintendent Bennett Walsh who is now representing him, held a press conference in Springfield where he released 19 documents showing text messages, emails and reports about veterans and staff at the home falling ill with COVID19 that Walsh sent to state officials starting March 22 — a full week before they claim they learned of the situation.
“For anyone to suggest that he covered up, concealed or tried to hide a public health crisis affecting the veterans he was committed to serve is a slander on his good name,” Bennett said.
According to Bennett, Walsh informed the Department of Veterans Services Secretary Francisco Urena the night he learned a veteran had tested positive for COVID-19 on March 21, and filed a critical incident report — the state’s mechanism for flagging issues at the facilities it oversees — with the Department of Veterans Services and the Executive Office of Health and Human Services the next day. Urena’s office declined comment.
The report says the veteran who tested positive was placed in isolation, while five other symptomatic veterans who had been tested were isolated in one room “to try to prevent the spread
of the disease.”
Walsh continued to update state officials via text message, email and a COVID-19 case tracking form as more tests came back positive, documents show. He filed a second critical incident report on March 25 after a staff member tested positive.
When a veteran suspected of having the virus died later that day, “state officials were notified orally of the death,” Bennett said.
Bennett also alleged staffing problems at the facility, saying 40 employees called out on one day. He said Walsh’s email request for medical assistance from the National Guard never came to fruition even as one state official wrote, “I understand that Holyoke needs as much help as it can get,” documents show.
Bennett also claimed unnamed state officials tried to prevent Walsh from speaking out without prior approval and were “livid” that he spoke to Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse the day before the tragedy went public.
“I believe this is why he was suspended,” Bennett said.
Of the 92 veterans who have died at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home since March, 76 tested positive for coronavirus, while another 75 residents and 84 employees have been sickened.
The outbreak has now spurred at least three state and federal investigations. Gov. Charlie Baker again insisted Tuesday that he didn’t learn of the situation until March 29 and said the results of an independent investigation by former federal prosecutor Mark W. Pearlstein would be available “reasonably soon.”
“When the lieutenant governor and the secretary and I were made aware of where this whole thing was on a Sunday night around 10 o’clock, by 8 o’clock in the morning we had the National Guard, an interim superintendent and a series of epidemiologists” on site, Baker said. “I’m waiting for Mark’s report because I think there’s a lot of back and forth on what happened.”