NJ veterans' homes still exposing residents to health dangers: Feds

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy's administration violated the constitutional rights of residents of veterans' homes in New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report. And despite new management, the homes continue to provide inadequate care and prevention of contagious diseases, the report said.

“Even by the standards of the pandemic’s difficult early days, the facilities were unprepared to keep their residents safe,” said the report by Phillip Sellinger, the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. “A systemic inability to implement clinical care policy, poor communication between management and staff, and a failure to ensure basic staff competency let the virus spread virtually unchecked throughout the facilities.”

More than 200 veterans died of COVID-19 in the Menlo Park and Paramus facilities, which are run by the New Jersey Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. The report found the facilities provided inadequate infection control and medical care.

It also found that although the Murphy administration fired the homes’ managers last year, there were no requirements placed on new managers to figure out what had happened.

“Without that assessment, the systemic deficiencies exposed by the initial COVID outbreak have continued,” the report said. Infection control and proper medical care continue to be a problem.

Murphy responded Thursday to the report’s release with an acknowledgement that mistakes were made.

“The U.S. Department of Justice’s report on the veterans' homes in Menlo Park and Paramus is a deeply disturbing reminder that the treatment received by our heroic veterans is unacceptable and, quite frankly, appalling,” Murphy said in a written statement.

He added that his administration has changed procedures and improved conditions.

“However, it is clear that we have significantly more work to do and we are open to exploring all options to deliver for our veterans the high level of care they deserve and are entitled to under the law,” he wrote.

The Paramus veterans' home is in the Bergen County district of U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who said he was involved in alerting authorities about the conditions there.

“The conditions were unacceptable then, and years later, despite all of the promises made to address the failures, they’re unacceptable now,” Gottheimer said in a written statement.

New Jersey has also paid out tens of millions of dollars in dozens of settlements over COVID-19 deaths at veterans' homes. Last summer, inspectors with the state health department also found COVID-19 infection control problems and other issues put residents of the Menlo Park home in “immediate jeopardy."

It detailed incidents including one where a nurse didn't know how to remove a catheter properly, and her patient wound up hospitalized for a urinary tract infection. Staffers failed to do contact tracing to contain a major COVID outbreak, the inspectors said in their report, which also cited multiple instances of alleged abuse.