* Dave McKinney…
A lifelong Chicago Cubs fan, Dolores French had been a resident of the Illinois Veterans Home for six weeks when she was found dead in her independent-living unit on Aug. 29, 2015. She was one of 13 elderly residents at the facility to die from Legionnaires’ since that first outbreak. […]
Last December, WBEZ reported French may have laid dead in her room for two days before anyone found her.
State officials have ruled out that possibility categorically.
“What we know to be sure, she was not dead in her room for two days with nobody knowing about it,” then-state Veterans’ Affairs Director Erica Jeffries told reporters after a January legislative hearing into the outbreaks.
But in his first interview about French’s case, the local coroner who delivered the sobering news to Steve French about his mother’s condition has a very different take. He tells WBEZ that she could have been dead between 36 and 48 hours before she was found.
And newly obtained health documents related to her case demonstrate a litany of questionable procedural and record-keeping practices at Illinois’ largest state-run veterans’ home, which takes in residents from across the state, including the Chicago area.
As always, go read the whole thing.
…Adding… DGA…
“Once again, Bruce Rauner’s administration proved they’re more interested in dodging blame than accepting responsibility for their mismanagement at the Quincy Veterans’ Home,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “In their enduring quest to avoid admitting fault, Rauner’s administration will not even give one family the dignity of telling the truth about their loss.”
