SPRINGFIELD — Gathering the region’s press corps in a hotel ballroom Thursday, former Hampden District Attorney William Bennett spent an hour defending his client and nephew, suspended Holyoke Soldiers’ Home Superintendent Bennett Walsh.
Bennett called the press conference to challenge what he characterized as inaccuracies in the public narrative surrounding Walsh’s leadership at the home during the recent coronavirus outbreak that has claimed the lives of at least 76 veteran residents.
Bennett accused the Baker Administration of spreading the “poison” of misinformation suggesting Walsh participated in a cover-up of the outbreak as it grew.
“It is one thing to say Bennett Walsh may have made mistakes. Of course he has,” Bennett said. “But it’s something else again to accuse him of not making good-faith mistakes but of a malicious cover-up. It is time for that poison to be removed from public discussion about these events.”
Last week, the estate of a Soldiers’ Home resident who died after contracting COVID-19 filed a class-action lawsuit against Walsh and other former employees and officials.
Much of Bennett’s speech focused on the independent investigation commissioned by Baker into the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak. The investigation, led by former federal prosecutor Mark Pearlstein, found that Walsh and other administrators made critical decisions during the final two weeks of March that were “utterly baffling from an infection-control perspective.”
In particular, the 174-page Pearlstein report slams the combining of two already crowded dementia units as the “worst decision,” resulting in conditions that staff described as “a nightmare,” “total pandemonium” and resembling “a war zone.” One staffer said in the report that “veterans on the combined unit did not receive sufficient nursing care, hydration or pain relief medications during the weekend of March 28 and 29.”
But Bennett disputed those conclusions.
“It was perhaps the best decision that could be made under the circumstances. It was carried out with the sole motivation to protect the health of the veterans, it was implemented in a way that was consistent with honor and dignity, and it had no impact on the spread of the virus,” Bennett claimed.
Bennett noted that the residents of the dementia unit were prone to wander, and because of their conditions were unlikely to wear masks, socially distance or isolate. He said the decision to combine the units was made only after a request for staffing assistance from the National Guard was denied, and that the combination was carefully planned and executed, placing asymptomatic, hospice and symptomatic patients into separate rooms.
“Every veteran was already sharing a room with at least one person who was already infected, so the exposure to the virus was already there,” he said. “And was going to be there whether they combined the units or not.”
Bennett also took issue with a section of the report that said the state emergency response team that arrived at the Soldiers’ Home on March 30 sent patients to acute-care facilities, and that the same option was available to Walsh and his team instead of combining the dementia units.
“That never happened,” Bennett claimed, suggesting that the state kept the dementia units combined and did not send those residents to local hospitals.
Bennett stressed that Walsh requested assistance from the National Guard on March 27 after many staffers called out and that he was in regular contact with state officials. He placed blame for the severity of the outbreak on the Baker Administration, which he said did not react effectively to the information Walsh was providing them.
“They weren’t paying attention,” he said. “They weren’t listening.”
An Executive Office of Health and Human Services spokesperson declined to comment on Bennett’s claims, stating that “Walsh has been terminated and the independent (Pearlstein) report speaks for itself.”
In practical terms, however, Walsh’s employment status is still in limbo. He has filed a lawsuit that has temporarily prevented the home’s board of trustees from meeting to consider his firing. A hearing on that injunction is scheduled for July 30, according to court records.
The state has installed an interim leadership team at the Soldiers’ Home while a search for a new superintendent is underway.
Soldiers’ Home staffers have said that their long-standing complaints about staffing shortages went unheard for years, making drastic understaffing during an emergency inevitable. The Pearlstein report said there was “massive” staff turnover under Walsh.
Other issues Bennett challenged at his press conference were assertions that Walsh was unqualified for the job — Bennett said that Baker personally approved his appointment — and that the facility’s plans to provide personal protective equipment, or PPE, to staff were inadequate.
Bennett provided reporters with emails showing Walsh and other managers tracking PPE in the final weeks of March, and another email from March 22 stating which staffers were required to wear masks.
However, nurses and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) at the facility have said they had to fight with managers for PPE even after the first patient tested positive for COVID-19. In a letter provided by SEIU 888 — the union representing CNAs and licensed practical nurses (LPNs) in the building — the facility’s chief nursing officer reprimanded a CNA for donning PPE during a March 18 shift.