Page 12 - BusinessWest May 30, 2022

Editorial
A Promise Not Kept
BusinessWest
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Lawyers representing the families that filed a class- action lawsuit against the state in the wake of the deaths of 84 veterans at the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home
in the spring of 2020 — and family members themselves — contend that the state’s willingness to pay $56 million to those families is an admission that this tragedy, one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks, was preventable and never should have happened.
And they are right in that assessment. While COVID pre- sented a stern challenge to every long-term facility in the country, and deaths were recorded at most all of them, what happened at the Soldiers’ Home was different. What hap- pened there was negligence — on many, many levels.
The 29-page lawsuit charged that the state “made a prom- ise to its citizen-soldiers” to care for them after they served their country but failed to stem the spread of COVID-19 through the home, which it said, “was preventable.”
“The Commonwealth did not keep its promise to protect and keep them safe from harm when they were unable to care for themselves,” the complaint states. “Our veterans deserved better.”
This is an understatement. It was and is the state’s respon- sibility to place those soldiers in the hands of administrators capable of leading a healthcare facility, and it was and is the state’s responsibility to make sure that those placed in these positions are doing the jobs they were hired to do.
In the case of the Holyoke Soldiers’ Home tragedy, neither
Editorial
of these responsibilities were met.
The lawsuit repeatedly cited the findings of the state-
ordered investigation by attorney Mark Pearlstein, who found that leaders at the Soldiers’ Home made ‘utterly baffling’ mis- takes in responding to the outbreak. These mistakes were not the result of poor leadership — they were the result of unqual- ified leadership.
The consequences were catastrophic — 84 lives were lost, and countless other lives were shattered by those losses.
Families of the victims, and even Gov. Baker himself, have acknowledged that the money from the settlement — roughly $400,000 for each victim — doesn’t end the pain. But for many impacted by this tragedy, it will bring a sense of closure.
We’re hoping that it will bring something else — a deeper commitment on the part of this state and other states to uphold their promises to constituencies like the veterans in Holyoke and to take more seriously the responsibilities they have to place such facilities in the hands of people capable of running them.
It wasn’t long after the full scope of the tragedy in Holyoke revealed itself that it became clear that this calamity simply didn’t have to happen. Any doubts were erased by the state’s willingness to settle this lawsuit. The state did the right thing by settling and can do the right thing again by making sure that the lessons learned here are heeded and those in power remain vigilant in their efforts to ensure that something like this never happens again. v
Taking Philanthropy to a Higher Level
The Community Foundation
of Western Massachusetts announced recently that Katie
Allan Zobel will be stepping down from her role as president and CEO of that vital agency. A search for a successor has commenced and a transition should be completed by September.
We’re confident that a worthy suc- cessor will be named, but these will
be big shoes to fill, indeed. During her tenure, Zobel took an already success- ful agency to new heights in terms of the work that it does and the lives that it impacts, and she is to be commended for all that she has done.
The Community Foundation was never just about writing checks and dispensing scholarships to students and funds to nonprofits. But on Zobel’s watch, the agency took philanthropy in many different directions, but especially the realm of working to solve problems in our community rather than simply throw money at them.
Under Zobel’s leadership, the Com-
munity Foundation of Western Mass. launched Valley Gives, which has raised more than $10 million through annual one-day, on-line fundraising campaigns for local nonprofits. Valley Gives has helped bring attention to the needs of hundreds of the region’s nonprofits, and it inspires more individuals and groups to give, because the foundation has made it easier to do so.
Another initiative launched during Zobel’s tenure is Valley Gives, a partner- ship with the Barr Foundation estab- lished to support a vibrant arts and creativity sector in Western Mass., an initiative that is already giving a louder, stronger voice to this important sector of the local economy.
Still another initiative launched dur- ing Zobel’s tenure is an effort to support research on college completion, with the understanding that it’s not enough to give a worthy student a scholarship; there is a need to help ensure that the student can successfully complete their college education and then put their degree to work.
And then, at the height of the pan- demic, Zobel led efforts to create the Community Foundation’s COVID-19 Response Fund to support community members and nonprofit partners most severely impacted by the pandemic and its many side-effects.
It was initiatives like these and Zobel’s leadership efforts to create them that earned her the distinction of being named one of BusinessWest’s Women
of Impact, and the Community Foun- dation itself being named a Difference Maker by the magazine this spring.
But for Zobel, it’s never been about awards, and it has never been about her. Instead, it’s been about her team, and a laser focus on how the foundation can make this region stronger and more resilient.
In short, she has helped take philan- thropy to a higher plane in this region, and she is to be commended for the many accomplishments she has led. v
12 MAY 30, 2022
OPINION
BusinessWest