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* Press release…
The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) has posted two Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports addressing the Legionnaires’ disease outbreaks at the Illinois Veterans Home in Quincy (IVHQ). CDC generated the reports after two visits by environmental health and infectious disease specialists to IVHQ. IDPH requested Epidemiologic Assistance (Epi-Aid) from the CDC after confirming an increase in Legionella cases in August 2015, and again in 2016. The CDC also visited IVHQ earlier this month and a summary of that visit is pending. These reports address the complexities of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak and how the State of Illinois has taken appropriate action.
The CDC describes the State’s diligent response and efforts to help protect the health and safety of veterans and IVHQ staff and visitors, noting:
• IVHQ has a well-established clinical infection surveillance and prevention program in place.
• From the identification of the outbreak, IVHQ clinical staff performed checks on all residents in skilled care every four hours, and twice daily for all residents in independent living. Per established IVHQ protocol, any resident developing symptoms consistent with a lower respiratory infection had a chest x-ray performed immediately for pneumonia diagnosis.
• Since the 2015 outbreak, significant remediation efforts undertaken by the Quincy Veteran’s Home have substantially reduced the presence of Legionella in the potable water system.
• Based on observations during the Epi-Aid investigation, the water management program was fully implemented, followed, and continuously reviewed by the water management team to optimize the water systems.
Emphasis added because there’s significant contrary evidence. The full report is here.
* Let’s go back to the original WBEZ report…
Dolores French, a native Chicagoan and lifelong Cubs fan who was 79, had only one health malady: deafness. Otherwise, she was in good health and was allowed to move into the veterans’ home with her husband of 57 years, Richard French Sr., because he was a U.S. Army veteran who served during the Korean War.
She was assigned to an independent living unit at the facility, Steve French said, while her husband was placed in another residential building at Quincy because he needed care for his worsening Parkinson’s disease. Typically, French said, his mother would walk to her husband’s room and spend eight hours a day with him.
When the phone call about Legionnaires’ at Quincy arrived, Steve French said he immediately wanted to check on his parents’ well-being and tried calling his mother, who had a device that translates phone calls into text. He got no response. He tried the desk in her building and also got nothing. The next call went to the facility’s administrative offices.
“I said, ‘This is Steve French. I heard the news. I’m just checking on my dad and mom,’” he recalled. “And she just said that they’re OK, that if something happens, we’ll get a call.”
That was Friday, Aug. 28, 2015.
But it wasn’t until the next morning, as French was contemplating making the drive to Quincy from Springfield to check on her, that he was notified by the home that his mother’s neighbors had reported her missing, and staff wanted permission to enter her room, he said.
Within 10 minutes, as the Frenches sat in their basement, another call came from Quincy to report his mother had been found on the floor in her apartment, dead.
As the news began to sink in, yet another call arrived, this time from the Adams County Coroner’s Office. French’s wife, Deann, took the phone.
“He said, ‘We found Mrs. French, and this is going to be difficult for me to tell you, but she has been dead for a significant amount of time,’” Deann French remembered. “So I’m processing that, and I said, ‘Do we know what happened to her? What happened?’ At this point, I’m not thinking Legionnaires’. I just wasn’t. And he said, ‘No, she was found on the floor in front of her recliner, pretty badly decomposed.’”
Within another hour or two, the coroner called back with confirmation that he suspected Legionnaires’, and that state law required an autopsy because an outbreak had been declared at the home.
According to the CDC’s report referenced by IDPH, the identification of the outbreak occurred on August 21, 2015. Mrs. French was found dead on August 29th in a state of decomposition. Yet, the state told the CDC they were checking on independent living residents twice a day starting August 21st.
I asked IDPH for comment yesterday and haven’t heard back.
* Again, the state supposedly identified the existence of an outbreak on August 21st. From the timeline I put together the other day…
August 21: Illinois Veterans’ Home resident Melvin Tucker develops a fever. He is given Tylenol.
August 26: Gerald Kuhn, 90, is given Tylenol for a fever that reaches 104 degrees. Kuhn asks to go to the hospital and tests positive there for Legionella.
August 27: After six days with a fever, Melvin Tucker is still not on any kind of antibiotic and hasn’t yet been tested for Legionnaires’, despite the CDC being notified four days earlier of an outbreak and the state announcing eight confirmed cases that same day.
August 31: Melvin Tucker and Gerald Kuhn die, bringing the death total to four.
But, according to the CDC’s report, the state claimed to the CDC that Legionella urine antigen test samples “were collected from any resident with an elevated temperature.”
*** UPDATE *** From the Kennedy campaign…
This applies to the multiple stories out today about Bruce Rauner neglecting our most vulnerable — and lying about it:
Examples of neglect and deceit continue to mount under Bruce Rauner’s administration. He’s overseeing a system that lies, that manipulates data, that destroys the health of our seniors, our veterans, and the developmentally disabled and the mentally ill. It’s a horrifying display of mismanagement and, even worse, it’s inhumane. Not only do we need a new governor, but we need leaders in both parties to stop protecting a system that’s crushing the most vulnerable communities in Illinois.
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:20 am
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Good infection control policies are easy to write, they are much harder to implement and follow. Sounds like they either lied to CDC or failed to properly implement and supervise the new policies
Comment by Pyrman Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:45 am
“These reports address the complexities of a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak and how the State of Illinois has taken appropriate action.”
Misinformation and coverups aside, for the life of me I don’t understand the tone of these releases. They essentially say Legionnaires is bad but we did everything we could. Sorry that veterans continue to die, but we’ve done everything we could. Just read this report.
Is this the Rauner admin’s status quo for the Quincy Veterans Home?
Comment by Michelle Flaherty Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:50 am
The original report was done by the CDC under the Obama Administration. Now, two years later, in reviewing that report, it appears that there are indeed inconsistencies that may approach the “L” word. The questionnaires in the report document, as well as the report, will probably be used in the lawsuits from the families. I wonder, especially in the cases of Mrs. French, Mr. Tucker, and Mr. Kuhn, how the records at the IVHA, the questionnaires filled out for the CDC report, and the reports of the coroner and Blessing Hospital will jive. I expect they won’t on several levels. Also, how engaged is the current Federal Administration on this case, and have they questioned any of the documentation from the 2015 report?
Comment by Anon221 Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:51 am
This seems like it could potentially be one of the worst scandals of the Rauner administration thus far.
Not sure how he can pass the buck on this one. He’ll try, but the blame here is gonna be hard to avoid.
Comment by Bobby T Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:56 am
Eldery - check
Veterans - check
Deaths - check
Apparent cover-up - check
Budget impasse timing - check
Governor’s agency - check
Governor’s Own - check
This story isn’t going away.
Comment by RNUG Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:57 am
Could it be that Trans Health Care wrote the reports?
Comment by Chicago 20 Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:57 am
It’s not the crime; it’s the cover-up.
Comment by Dee Lay Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:58 am
So procedurally what happens? Does it he CDC do an investigation? If the home is shown to have lied to him he CDC are there federal charges or just a fine and could the Feds take the place over?
Regardless of politics this should be front page news it reeks of criminality and cover up
Comment by DuPage Saint Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:58 am
@RNUG - my thoughts exactly.
Comment by illini Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 11:59 am
Time for the FBI and US Attorney’s Office to have a look.
Comment by Moe Berg Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:01 pm
For the staff at IVHA, was the OSHA protocol followed???
https://www.osha.gov/dts/osta/otm/otm_iii/otm_iii_7.html#app_iii:7_1
Comment by Anon221 Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:07 pm
And the governor, as a noninfected white male, does not have anything more to add to the discussion.
Comment by Radio Flyer Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:13 pm
Is this a result of the impasse? Or just general mismanagement?
Seems like it’d be fairly straightforward to tie Rauner’s pre-political dealings with nursing home vulture capitalism to this.
I mean, there’s a pattern here. Or at least one is emerging.
Comment by Bobby T Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:18 pm
Speaker Madigan and the CDC he controls
Comment by Name Withheld Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:36 pm
Is it time to bring back tar and feathers?
Comment by Flapdoodle Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:38 pm
That Madigan!
Comment by Al Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 12:44 pm
Mrs. French could not have been checked on twice a day and then also found dead, “pretty badly decomposed.” Not possible.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 1:16 pm
==Speaker Madigan and the CDC he controls==
Madigan and the lethal bacteria he controls.
Considering Rauner’s record with squeezing nursing homes — this is some major karma.
Comment by IllinoisBoi Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 1:40 pm
According to IDPH, Mrs. French, as an independent living resident, was checked on twice a day.
Mrs. French was found dead, “pretty badly decomposed.”
Obviously, Mrs. French was not checked on twice a day.
It’s incumbent upon the proper authorities to get to the bottom of this. It’s the duty of us as citizens to make sure that they do.
Comment by wordslinger Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 1:45 pm
I said this the other day, saying it again.
This is criminal; sometuoe of abuse/neglect charge, or other needs to be pursued.
Comment by cdog Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 2:34 pm
This is an example of insufficient number of employees to do the job. Communicable disease surveillance and control is intence and time consuming. IDPH doesn’t have staff enough for when outbreaks occur. Rather than pointing the finger at IDPH, look at who is dismantling Illinois’s infrastructure in state agencies!
Comment by Bman Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 2:49 pm
What did Governor Rauner know and when did he know it?
Comment by Gettysburgaddress Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 3:09 pm
The silence from ILGA Republicans on this scandal is deafening.
Comment by Sugar Corn Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 3:13 pm
Remember the Governor told people in 2016 we’re on top of this. I guess this is what happens when you run government like a business.
Comment by Sigh Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 3:35 pm
Sounds like the CDC shouldn’t be so naive and trusting when investigating health epidemics in Illinois state facilities.
Comment by State worker Friday, Dec 22, 17 @ 4:03 pm