First impressions are important.

“I know what I don’t know,” says Dr. Jon Santiago at a recent meeting with veterans as Gov. Maura Healey’s secretary of veterans’ services, a newly created cabinet-level position.

Santiago approaches this new chapter in the history of veterans’ services in our state with humility and an understanding that his job comes with great expectation to be proactive and to take charge. It’s not just about shaking hands and showing up at events.

“It’s very easy for me to go out and take pictures with veterans and get likes, but if the foundation isn’t there, you have disasters that happen,” he says.

Three years ago, when COVID-19 decimated the floors at the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, we could have used Santiago — an emergency department doctor, Fulbright scholar, Yale graduate, Peace Corps alum, and Army Reservist who has deployed overseas.

Santiago knows he has his work cut out for him, but I am more optimistic than ever before that we have the right leader and the right administrative structure to change things around in Boston. Instilling confidence in how the veterans’ home in Holyoke and its sister facility in Chelsea is run and operated is a top priority.

“We can’t change the past, but we can change the future,” says Santiago, who was born in Puerto Rico. He moved to Boston as a child and was raised in Roxbury in subsidized housing.

If I could turn back the clock, I wish our state could have put him in charge of veteran programs years ago and without all the red tape his predecessors faced. Things, I believe, would have been different at the Soldiers’ Home. Lives, I believe, would have been saved at the state facility recently renamed the Veterans’ Home in Holyoke.

“Really, the goals come down to one thing: it’s how do we rebuild trust in the veteran community,” Santiago told the legislature’s Joint Committee on Ways and Means at a budget hearing last month.

After years of budgetary and bureaucratic neglect, veterans are finally getting both the governor’s full support and the backing of the Legislature, and Santiago is excited to lead the way. The state is giving him the resources to double his staff.

Before his appointment, Santiago served four years as a state representative from Boston, and he knows firsthand that he can’t do the job without the Legislature’s full support. He also needs to improve outreach and increase communication with veterans and their family members.

To do that, he’s now building a team of equally energetic, capable, and passionate people who know that a big part of any job in state government is listening. Listening, I can tell you, hasn’t been a strong suit in Boston when it comes to veterans’ services. It will be now, he says.

“My job as I see it is to honorably serve those who have served us,” he says.

“Us” is a diverse population of roughly 300,000 veterans, many of whom are Vietnam era veterans who need skilled nursing care. In about a decade or so, they will be followed by veterans like me who served after 9/11 and who, from our service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are more likely than other veterans to have a service-connected disability requiring medical attention.

Of particular interest for us and our family members will be how the state will meet our needs. Demand for state-of-the-art long-term care is already significant, which is why, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 tragedy in Holyoke, we demanded the state construct a new 234-bed facility in Holyoke, complete with private rooms organized around shared community living spaces.

The new Holyoke facility must be in alignment with required federal specifications and with the promise of having the best standards in long-term care — standards that are expected to prevent horrific conditions from ever occurring again in Holyoke when more than 80 veterans lost their lives under state stewardship.

This will take enormous strategic planning — planning to not only get the design right but to also ensure the right levels of trained staff will be able to support such a transformative model of care.

For the new Holyoke facility, there’s also promises that a much-needed adult day health care program will be newly established to support veterans who aren’t quite ready for 24/7 nursing home care but who need the benefit of supervision and companionship during the day.

Adult day health care was a critical piece of the legislation that was passed as part of the massive $400 million bond bill package to construct a new Veterans’ home in Holyoke.

At a time when as many as 20 or more veterans die on average per day from suicide and too many veterans are homeless or require financial assistance or need skilled medical attention because of their time in uniform, Santiago’s leadership is critical. We finally have a secretary of veterans’ services elevated to a cabinet-level executive department.

It shouldn’t have taken the travesty that was the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke when so many veterans lost their lives to COVID to get to this point. But now having a secretary like Santiago with public health experience with increased powers and an expanded office? That’s game changing and long overdue. And something to finally cheer about.

John Paradis is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. He lives in Florence.]]>