In the News

A proposal to renovate and expand the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home got a major boost Saturday as First District U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, Chairmen of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, threw his support behind the plan.

“The proposals that we are speaking about today regarding the renovation for the future of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home are critical given the terrible tragedy of 76 veterans losing their lives due to the coronavirus outbreak here,” he said.

Neal has a family member living in the Soldier’s Home. His uncle Robert Garvey is a resident.

With the Soldiers’ Home looming in the background, Neal told a press conference Saturday that the renovation program at the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home is about to begin and said what is good and necessary for Chelsea is also good for the Holyoke home.

“What we are talking about here is regional equity,” he said. “That means that what is about to happen in Chelsea is consistent with what is being proposed here. Holyoke must capture the attention and investment that Chelsea gets.”

The Chelsea facility is now prepared for a $177 million expansion and renovation project. According to state reports, 31 veterans died in the Chelsea home during the outbreak of COVID-19 this spring.

Former home Superintendent Paul Barabani joined Neal at the press conference and said the Veteran’s Administration approved a plan for the Holyoke Home similar to the Chelsea project and agreed to a 65 percent federal reimbursement if the state matched the remaining 35 percent. A study conducted in 2011 indicated that 95 percent of the home’s rooms did not meet VA standards.

Neal said he is offering whatever assistance the federal government can offer the Holyoke facility, recognizing it is a state institution.

“There is an opportunity here (for federal funding). I have raised the issue with the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar. I have spoken with him twice about the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home and I told him I wanted him to monitor the situation,” he said. “There is an oversight role through the Veteran’s Administration even if not a day to day operational role. Whatever we can do with federal resources we will do.”

Neal pointed out that while World War II and Korea veterans are now living out their last days in the home, the Vietnam War, Desert Storm and subsequent conflicts have raised more than 1 million veterans who will need care in the future.

Barabani said the plan presented to the state in 2016 would give the veterans who rely on the Home’s care and the staff the best opportunities. He laid out a range of programs and care opportunities that would be made possible by the construction program.

The expansion program, including a five-story tower, would not increase the number of beds in the facility, he said but would allow for single rooms for each veteran and a bathroom and shower for each room.

Currently, veteran residents live in multi-bed rooms, with shared toilet facilities down the hall. For mobility-challenged residents, that could be a problem.

Robert Twining’s veteran husband Timothy suffers from a neurological disorder. He found himself without a walker during the COVID-19 outbreak, she said, and had to crawl from his bed to the bathroom.

“Private rooms with individual bathrooms offer a dignified environment for our veterans to live in, as well as negating the spread of infection like we saw this spring,” Barabani said.

An adult daycare program would allow veterans to remain at home and in their communities and delay that time when they would need 24-hour care a little longer, Barabani said.

They would be able to participate in programs and activities, get their medications on a regular schedule and receive meals here at the Home

Laurie Baurdette said she while appreciated Governor Charlie Baker’s proposals for correcting problems at the Holyoke Home she asked that the special needs of an elderly population be considered.

“I appreciate the Governor’s reforms but I urge him to reach out to families and veteran agencies to get feedback,” she said. “I would like to see staffing reforms include three additional staff members, including a full-time geriatrician as medical director, a full-time psychiatric nurse-practitioner and a full-time geriatric nurse. I feel those additional staff members would make the Home a safer environment for all future veterans. "

The call for major rehab of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home has resurfaced as an independent study commissioned by Governor Baker was released earlier this week, that called decisions made by the home’s administration during the COVID-19 pandemic spread through the home, killing about 1/3 of all its patients, “baffling.”

The report depicted frantic efforts to force all 40 dementia patients together in one room, even after one patient had been diagnosed with COVID-19 and five others were awaiting test results.

Report author, former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein, called the moves “a catastrophe” and “the opposite of infection control.” None of the Home administration, save the chief nursing officer, admitted any responsibility for the move.

The Home’s then-Superintendent Bennett Walsh and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Francisco Urena were both fired after the report was made public. The medical director for the home at the time of the COVID-19 spread, Dr. David Clinton resigned as did the veterans’ affairs department general counsel Stuart Ivimey.