After a nearly three-year-long investigation, a major report released this morning by the U.S. Justice Department finds that the state of New Jersey provided “unconstitutionally deficient care” at state-run veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park.
The report, which was assembled by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, harshly criticizes the state for its handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the two veterans homes, charging that “even by the standards of the pandemic’s difficult early days, the facilities were unprepared to keep their residents safe.”
“The residents of the Veterans Homes have a Fourteenth Amendment right to conditions of reasonable care and safety,” the report states. “The State’s ongoing failure to implement basic infection control protocols and provide adequate medical care to the Veterans Homes’ residents violates the constitutional rights of individuals who live there.”
The report details a number of remedies the state should pursue, including implementing more robust infection control measures, providing better medical care on a day-to-day basis, maintaining more reliable data on health outcomes, and creating new oversight and accountability measures within the state Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs.
In the earliest days of the pandemic, New Jersey’s assisted-living facilities – including its three state-run veterans’ homes in Paramus, Menlo Park, and Vineland – were some of the hardest-hit places anywhere in the country. At least 200 residents and staff members at the Paramus and Menlo Park facilities ultimately died from the virus.
The state’s policies at the two facilities drew massive political scrutiny, especially from Republican lawmakers, as well as substantial litigation; the state has so far paid nearly $69 million to the families of veterans home residents who died of Covid.
Gov. Phil Murphy initiated an independent review of the state’s overall Covid response in November 2022, a review which is still ongoing. That same month, Murphy announced that his administration would seek to find a private vendor to take over operations of the state’s three veterans’ homes.
Those actions, however, didn’t halt the Justice Department’s investigation into whether New Jersey’s policies violated – and continue to violate – the constitutional rights of veterans’ home residents. Today’s report firmly concludes that they do.
“Those who served to protect this nation and their families are entitled to appropriate care when they reside at a veterans’ home,” U.S. Attorney Philip Sellinger said in a statement. “The Paramus and Menlo Park veterans’ homes fail to provide the care required by the U.S. Constitution and subject their residents to unacceptable conditions, including inadequate infection control and deficient medical care. These conditions must swiftly be addressed to ensure that our veterans and their families at these facilities receive the care they so richly deserve. We will not stop working until they do.”