(WBBM NEWSRADIO) - A lawmaker who led the call for an audit of the state’s response to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak at the LaSalle Veterans Home in 2020 is disappointed by some of its findings.
Acknowledging the chaos of COVID-19 cases tripling in the region around the outbreak, State Representative Lance Yednock said it was still disappointing to see state agencies were not communicating, as the auditor general found.
“I was also surprised that maybe some of the people that we had thought weren’t doing much to try and get other state agencies to listen, maybe were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing, so I take just a little bit of solace,” Yednock said.
He’s referring to former VA chief of staff Anthony Kolbeck who resigned after an earlier report blamed him for failing to update the public health department about cases and deaths. This audit found public health did not respond to the seriousness of the outbreak that saw 85% of the home’s residents test positive over seven weeks.
Yednock wants the audit to bring about more changes in the VA after 36 veterans died of COVID at LaSalle.
“I’m very hopeful that it will, it needs to. I guess I shouldn’t say I’m hopeful, it has to,” said Yednock.
With two reviews of the state’s response, he said he’s inclined to follow this one over the one conducted by the inspector general for the department of human services.
“I think I would take the auditor general’s report right now. It was much more comprehensive. It wasn’t just interviews with people without being able to check facts,” added Yednock.
Yednock wants to hold legislative hearings over the summer to make sure the state has learned lessons from this.
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