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Concord, N.H. -- Today, the New Hampshire Democratic Party filed right-to-know requests calling on the Sununu information to turn over public records about Governor Sununu’s sham Veterans Home “report,” which does not even attempt to investigate the outbreak that killed 37 veterans. You can read the full right-to-know requests here. Sununu’s so-called “report” does not assess what could have prevented or mitigated the outbreak at the Veterans Home. Rather, it simply provides the results of an examination of the Veterans Home's compliance with COVID protocols on one day -- March 12, 2021 -- four months after the first reported death and seven weeks after the outbreak ended. Nowhere in the report does it mention concerns about testing lags at the start of the outbreak, a lack of PPE, staffing shortages, or residents having to wait days for the COVID vaccine. It also does not address Sununu’s summer 2020 veto of HB 1246, a bill that would have provided $25 million for long-term care facilities like the Veterans Home to prepare for COVID outbreaks. In fact, the report makes only passing mention of the deadly outbreak at all. The right to know requests sent by Ray Buckley, chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, to Governor Sununu, Department of Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Shibinette, and Veterans Home Commandant Margaret LaBrecque ask for, “Any and all correspondence to or from the NHVH or its employees and the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services and its employees, and the Office of the Governor and its employees.” “Governor Sununu let our veterans and the Veterans Home staff down by failing to take real action to mitigate the outbreak at the Veterans Home, and now he is letting them down again by failing to investigate what went wrong,” said New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley. “Granite Staters deserve to know exactly why Sununu refuses to issue an independent report to determine what steps could have saved lives and better protected our veterans.”
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