Might 12 (UPI) — Massachusetts on Thursday agreed to pay $56 million in a settlement with the households of dozens of veterans who died amid a widespread COVID-19 outbreak at a nursing residence in 2020.
Gov. Charlie Baker referred to as the outbreak on the state-run Holyoke Troopers’ House a “horrible tragedy” in an announcement saying the settlement. The outbreak noticed greater than 160 veterans contract COVID-19 between March 1 and June 23, 2020, with at the least 84 dying from the virus.
“Whereas we all know nothing can convey again those that had been misplaced, we hope that this settlement brings a way of closure to the family members of the veterans,” Baker mentioned.
Underneath the settlement, households of the 84 veterans who contracted COVID-19 and died earlier than June 23, 2020, will probably be paid at the least $400,000, with a mean cost of $510,000, in line with legal professionals Michael Aleo and Tom Lesser.
They added that one other group of veterans who had been contaminated however survived previous June 23, 2020, will probably be paid at the least $10,000, receiving a mean award of $20,000.
The settlement is topic to approval by the federal district court docket for Massachusetts.
Donald Okay. Stern, a former U.S. legal professional for Massachusetts, will administer the claims fund and make awards primarily based on a overview of every claimant’s circumstances.
Linda McKee, whose father, James Miller, a 96-year-old World Conflict II veteran, died within the outbreak, mentioned she was glad to see Massachusetts “lastly settle for some accountability for what occurred.”
“The reminiscences of how my father was handled on the Troopers’ House won’t ever be erased from my thoughts,” McKee mentioned in an announcement. “It will have been extra humane if he had died on Omaha Seaside in Normandy than how he died on the Troopers’ House.”
A June 2020 report discovered that leaders on the facility made “substantial errors” in responding to the outbreak together with transferring all veterans, together with some who examined optimistic for the coronavirus, from considered one of two locked dementia models into one other locked dementia unit the place they had been crowded with veterans already residing there, a few of whom had additionally been contaminated.
Baker on the time referred to as the findings of the unbiased investigation ordered by the state “nothing wanting gut-wrenching.”