Lindy Washburn and Scott Fallon, NorthJersey.com
The New Jersey attorney general has requested troves of documents from the Paramus and Menlo Park veterans homes in a far-reaching investigation of their high death tolls during the COVID-19 pandemic, and a state records review has increased total coronavirus deaths at the two state-run facilities to 190.
The addition of 47 “probable” deaths due to COVID-19 at the two New Jersey veterans homes means that nearly a third of the residents at each home died of confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19. Two nurses’ aides, one at each of the homes, also died.
Thirty-nine previously uncounted deaths at the Menlo Park Veterans Memorial Home make its 101 resident deaths the highest now reported at a New Jersey nursing home and the highest among state-run veterans homes nationwide. There were 300 residents at the home on March 13, when the homes closed their doors to visitors on orders from health officials.
At the Paramus Veterans Memorial Home, an additional eight probable deaths attributed to COVID-19 by the state Health Department increase its total to 89. Before the pandemic, the home had 312 residents. The number of probable deaths at each home was released this week after NorthJersey.com and the USA TODAY Network New Jersey asked for them.
“Having one-third of the residents die in our veterans homes is tragically unacceptable,” Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Middlesex, said in an interview Wednesday. “Someone has to be held accountable for this.” In August, Vitale held a hearing on the deaths at the homes.
Many residents of nursing homes throughout the state died without being hospitalized or tested for COVID-19. Information on their death certificates allows examiners within the Communicable Disease Service at the state Health Department to determine whether the death should be attributed to the novel coronavirus.
More on veterans homes: Massachusetts veterans home leaders face criminal charges over coronavirus outbreak
Across the state, 1,787 deaths have been identified as “probable” coronavirus deaths after such reviews. March and April saw many more deaths statewide than would be typical in a normal year, and the reviewers looked at medical records for symptoms related to COVID-19, as well as possible alternative causes of death.
The news confirms what many front-line staffers and families of residents have said since the pandemic’s first days: that the number of COVID-19 deaths at both homes had been undercounted.
Some have suggested the lack of testing may have been deliberate.
“If you’re not testing residents, you conveniently do not have a COVID death on your tally sheet,” said Paul da Costa, a lawyer representing dozens of families of veterans home residents who plan to sue the Menlo Park home.
“I always knew more than [62] Menlo Park residents had passed from the COVID because so many veterans died at JFK Medical Center like my Dad,” she said.
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