New Jersey state run veterans homes are getting a major overhaul following a blistering report from the Department of Justice which criticized the facilities for high coid 19 related death tolls a failed pandemic response and poor medical care that continues today Governor Murphy and a handful of democratic leaders on Wednesday announced plans to reform how New Jersey oversees vets homes by taking the facilities out of the Department of military and Veterans Affairs and into new state agency for more details I'm joined by our Healthcare writer Lilo Stainton Stainton, Lilo ,hey it's good to talk to you uh we have had so many it seems reports come out in the last several days about the veterans homes What specifically is this plan that Democrats seem to be uh in agreement with right well the first thing they did say is they called it a conceptual plan um and it's clear that it will take some time to put into action but it's it's basically three parts um there is discussion of creating a m legislation that would essentially move the um the veterans homes out of what is now called Dava the department of military and Veterans Affairs into a new entity um with cabinet level Authority they also are talking about appointing a a veterans Advocate uh at a fairly high level that could could raise these issues in the future um and the third piece is there's an acceptance or sort of an acknowledgment that the federal government is likely to send a federal monitor to oversee any changes um which was is they said in their statement something that was put in place at the Department of Children and Families and probably helped the process to make sure that children and families are being better served so they were looking at this as a positive opportunity um to make change I mean this is a pretty big move to completely dismantle how the department works right now What specifically was so scathing in the report that prompted this yeah I mean the reports they talked about you know chronic underst Staffing lack of understanding of basic infection control protocols um you know poor communication with families and and within the staff um there's a whole Litany of of problems I think the the real issue is that um I mean coid was was devastating in nursing homes across the state and in across the country this was not uniquely a New Jersey problem but there seemed to be a real reluctance to deal with the problems um upfront at the veterans homes things like having telling staff not to wear masks the first few weeks because it would scare people I mean those are just actions that we now know are completely counter to what we needed to be doing to control the spread of Co um so it was some pretty glaring stuff now improvements have been made they've hired an oversight outside oversight um they've sent in experts from the state so there are changes underway um but more to come so it sounds like there's a lot of coalescing around this idea it's not the first time though that we've heard this brought up what's the history there for them to have uh finally arrived at this position right well um interestingly enough the you know Senator vital and cryan have been working on legislation for some time um interesting L enough the governor's office uh pointed out to us this morning in an email that uh Governor Murphy actually raised the issue of separating or dismantling Dava in some way back in 2016 during his campaign um you know which is an interesting point but does raise questions about why this hasn't happened yet you mention it's not just limited to the veterans homes there have been other scathing report about nursing homes about folks with intellectual developmental disabilities who were in the nursing homes and died from coid as a result of of poor care there as pertains to those reports what largely is happening in the state why is there this lack of oversight yeah I think um I think to be fair part of this is you know things that have been going on for a long time that we are now all learning about all at once so some of this is the perception um but I think to be honest there is there is a question of oversight here um one of the things that was particularly interesting to me that was in a federal report a federal audit from the Inspector General of uh Department of Health and Human uh Senior Services uh that came out this week was they noted that do just seems to be very um literal when it comes to enforcing the rules so there seems to be so some disagreement on how you interpret rules and what what the goals are is it regulatory to meet the letter of the law or to protect the people who live there that's a good point uh our Healthcare writer Lilo Stainton for us Lilo thanks as always thank you Bri