In the News

HOLYOKE, MASS. (WHDH) - Congressmen Joe Kennedy III and Richard Neal are introducing a bill in response to the deadly COVID-19 outbreak that occurred at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home in the springtime.

The Holyoke Veteran’s Act aims to get justice for 76 veterans who died from coronavirus exposure at the home and prevent an incident like that from happening again.

If passed, the bill would require all top administrators at soldiers’ homes to be properly licensed. It would also require those homes to hire an infection prevention expert.

“If the infection had been detected earlier, the contagion had been discovered quicker, it strikes me that there might have been a better opportunity to cut down on the number of deaths that took place,” Neal said.

Neal, who has a 92-year-old uncle at the facility, would like a new Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke. His uncle, a Korean War veteran, caught the virus but survived.

“If you were to walk through the corridors [of the Soldier’s Home] you’d be struck as to how small some of the bedroom facilities are and they have two beds,” Neal said. “You would be struck by the proximity that they all had in the dementia unit. They literally sit elbow to elbow.”