After Justice Department report, lawmakers want to take ex-Health Commissioner’s name off building

After the U.S. Justice Department smacked New Jersey’s treatment of veterans living in state-run nursing homes, two Republican assemblywomen want to remove Judy Persichilli’s name from the New Jersey Department of Health building.

The report from the Division of Civil Rights and the U.S. Attorney’s office in New Jersey found that veterans homes in Menlo Park and Paramus were unprepared to keep residents safe during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and that a deficiency in medical care violated the civil rights of the veterans who lived there.  

“Nothing can bring back our brave veterans, who senselessly perished during the pandemic, in large part because of the misguided policies of Governor Murphy and former Health Commissioner Judy Persichilli,” said Marilyn Piperno (R-Colts Neck) and Kim Eulner (R-Shrewsbury).  “We can, however, not continue to dishonor their memory by commemorating the very person whose decision-making was so deeply intertwined with the atrocities outlined in the DOJ report.”

Persichilli became health commissioner in 2019 and retired last month.  In 2022,  the state renamed the Department of Health’s headquarters as the “Judith M. Persichilli Building.”

“Renaming a building is easy.  The hard work goes into fixing the deplorable conditions that led to the demise of so many,” Piperno and Eulner said.  “Governor Murphy and Senator Vin Gopal, in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Military and Veterans Affairs Committee, have clearly let our brave men and women down.”

Piperno and Eulner, facing a competitive re-election campaign in the Monmouth County-based 11th district after upsetting two incumbents in 2021, want Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin to bring the legislature back into session to pass legislation that would upgrade the Menlo Park and Paramus veterans homes.

Legislation approving the name change of the Health Department building was passed in June 2021.