UConn has a very big job ahead of it. How it plans to fill gaps, invest in a struggling CT hospital

Hartford Courant – Tuesday, February 3, 2026
By Hartford Courant staff

When UConn Health officials take control of Waterbury Hospital, they plan to actively address staffing, software and infrastructure issues, saying there are gaps at the facility following ownership of Prospect Medical Holdings, a private equity company.

“Prospect did a lot of damage that we are working aggressively with every resource of the state to repair,” said UConn Health Chairman John Driscoll.

“We are leveraging UConn, our doctors, and our professional staff to fill the many holes that the hospital created. The promise of great care at Waterbury is quite real. The practical reality is it is going to take a little time to invest the resources to fill the gaps where Prospect took and we need to build.”

The Office of Health Strategy approved UConn’s Health emergency certificate of need to purchase the hospital on Jan. 30. UConn Health officials said they do not have a closing date yet to purchase the hospital, which they are set to acquire for $13 million.

State lawmakers passed legislation to allow UConn Health to establish subsidiaries or joint ventures to “acquire, operate, fund or improve hospitals.” The legislation also allocates $390 million in bonding to UConn Health to improve the hospitals it intends to acquire.

“I’m confident we’re moving toward a much stronger and brighter future for the facilities owned by Prospect,” said Gov. Ned Lamont in a statement. “While the path ahead is not without challenges, UConn Health has shown real leadership by stepping up and prioritizing the health care needs of the Greater Waterbury community.”

Waterbury Mayor Paul Pernerewski Jr. said “we are looking forward to having a new operator there that is going to be much more focused on providing health care to the rest of Waterbury and the surrounding region.”

Waterbury Hospital struggled for years under the ownership of Prospect Medical Holdings, an out-of-state private equity company in bankruptcy that state and federal officials said drained profits from the hospital at the expense of patient care. The company owes $64.4 million to the state for hospital provider taxes for Waterbury Hospital, as well as $22 million to the city for property taxes, officials have said. Suppliers have also claimed unpaid debts.

Addressing ‘holes’

Driscoll said the short term challenge is ensuring that UConn has the systems in place to support the clinical and administrative staff of the hospital including addressing the software system, “guaranteeing the doctors and nurses are being taken care of in terms of benefits and pay,” and expanding primary and specialty coverage in the Waterbury area.

“Waterbury had a major cyber failure and that was not an accident,” Driscoll said referring to the cyberattack that crippled the hospitals in 2023.

Driscoll said the cyberattack was the “direct result of the lack of the investment in the systems.”

“Many of the systems at Waterbury are out of date so we need to make sure that the management team at Waterbury and UConn Health have the systems in place to deliver the best patient care,” he said. “In some cases just entering the patient name in the system can take as long as nine to 10 times.”

Prospect Medical Holdings did not return an email seeking comment for this story.

Staffing is another high priority area UConn will address, Driscoll said.

“I think we are revising all of the staffing assumptions from Prospect to make sure that we are staffing at a level consistent with what UConn Health has achieved,” he said.

Dr. Andy Agwunobi, UConn Health CEO and EVP of Health Affairs, said “we feel a sense of responsibility to make sure that the care that everyone walks in the door gets is the care that we are confident about and comfortable with.

“It is no longer going to be a for-profit hospital,” he said. “It will be a nonprofit hospital and it will be partnered with a health system that believes deeply in the mission of serving the people of Connecticut. The message is that our guiding principal as we come together into this partnership is an absolute focus on award-winning quality safety and patient services.”

Connecticut Healthcare Associates, the union which represents the nurses and technicians at Waterbury Hospital, has for years noted concerns about understaffing at Waterbury Hospital.

Ed Gadomski, Connecticut Healthcare Associates Internal Union organizer, said the hospital is greatly understaffed.

“Everything revolves around staffing and it has to be a top priority,” he said.

In November 2024, the state Department of Public Health in a consent order fined Waterbury Hospital $60,000 for violations of state law and called on the hospital to develop, review and revise policies and procedures related to staffing levels, abuse prevention and other policies.

Connecticut Healthcare Associates also shared concerns about Prospect’s termination of the 401(k) of its employees beginning this month and the use of what they described as a “demand nursing platform” known as CareRev to hire nurses to fill open slots in the hospital.

Lauresha Xhihani, CT regional director of communications and public relations for Waterbury Health, said “Waterbury Hospital is using CareRev as a supplemental staffing resource.

“This is one of several staffing resources we use including travel nurses and internal incentives and programs for our own nurses,” she said.

Agwunobi said that UConn Health is “actively working to secure a comprehensive employee benefits program including a 401(k), which will become effective at the close of transaction.”

In response to a question about CareRev, Agwunobi said that UConn Health’s Integration Management Office is reviewing all current contracts and that vendors would be evaluated to determine “how and when their services may be utilized following the closing.”

Suzanne Koenig, president of SakHealthcare and the patient care ombudsman for Prospect’s hospitals, said in her latest report filed last month, according to court filings, that overall staffing levels have increased at the hospital since Prospect filed for bankruptcy last year.

“Further, unit managers across Waterbury reported that there was a marked increase in interested nursing applicants following the announcement of the sale of Waterbury,” Koenig said in her report.

She said in her report that the hospital appeared to maintain “good patient care and safety.”

Gadomski said morale is certainly an issue at the hospital that he hopes is addressed.

“There is no faith or trust in the current administration that was working under Prospect and that needs to be addressed so we can bring back that trust and move forward as a team,” he said.

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