2 charged over handling of virus outbreak at veterans home

BOSTON >> Two former administrators of a Massachusetts veterans home where nearly 80 people sickened by the coronavirus died have been charged over their handling of the outbreak, the state attorney general said Friday.

It’s believed to be the first criminal case in the country brought against nursing home officials for actions during the pandemic, Attorney General Maura Healey said.

Former Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh and former Medical Director Dr. David Clinton were indicted by a grand jury on charges stemming from their decision in March to combine two dementia units, packing residents who were positive for the coronavirus into the same space as those with no symptoms, Healey said.

The veterans “risked their lives from the beaches of Normandy, to some the jungles of Vietnam, and to know that they died under the most horrific circumstances is truly shocking,” Healey told reporters.

A phone message was left Friday with a lawyer for Walsh. An email was sent to attorneys for Clinton. They could each face prison time if convicted of causing or permitting serious bodily injury or neglect of an elder, Healey said.

Relatives of veterans who died at the home said they hope “justice will prevail.”

“We now want our state to move forward and do the right thing to ensure this never happens again to any other veteran,” the family members said in an statement emailed by the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Coalition, a group advocating for improvements.

The charges come three months after a scathing independent report said “utterly baff ling” decisions made by Walsh and other administrators allowed the virus to spread unchecked. The “worst decision” was to combine the two locked dementia units, both of which already housed some residents with the virus, said investigators led by former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein.

Healey said Walsh and Clinton were the ones ultimately responsible for the decision to combine the two units, which she said led to “tragic and deadly results.” More than 40 veterans were packed into a single unit that usually had 25 beds, and space was so limited that nine veterans — some with symptoms and some without — were sleeping in the dining room, Healey said.

“This never should have happened. It never should have happened from an infection controls standpoint,” Healey said.