Monitor in place at Waterbury Hospital, officials say

Republican American – Sunday, December 22, 2024
By Livi Stanford

Waterbury Hospital officials said they have filled the independent monitor position to oversee patient care. This action came after the Department of Public Health fined the hospital $60,000 last month and ordered officials to execute a contract for the extra layer of surveillance after five unannounced inspections found violations of state law.

“We will continue to focus on providing excellent patient care to our patients and supporting our colleagues,” said Lauresha Xhihani, director of communications and marketing for Waterbury Health. DPH’s consent order issued on Nov. 22 states the monitor should be at the hospital 32 hours a week and provide consulting services for one year unless DPH identifies through inspections that a longer period is necessary. The order also states that within 14 days, the hospital should develop or revise policies and procedures related to staffing levels and abuse prevention, including screening, abuse reporting, investigation and staff education; patient restraints; management of patients on continuous cardiac monitoring; anesthesia services and internal reporting of serious events.

Xhihani said the hospital has policies in place that fulfill the consent order’s requirements in those areas.

“Like virtually every other hospital in the country, Waterbury Hospital has been challenged with nursing shortages,” she said. “Despite this challenge, we continue to actively and successfully recruit nurses and staff with new employees joining our team every month.” The inspections concluded on May 3, 2023, June 14, 2023, Dec. 1, 2023, March 27, 2024 and May 10th this year found numerous violations including the death of a patient, allegations of abuse of a patient and failure to maintain privacy of protected health information.

Christopher Boyle, director of communications for the Department of Public Health, did not return emails for comment concerning whether the independent monitor would be in place. The Sunday Republican requested the inspection reports detailing the above incidents after they were not found online with the consent order. Boyle did not answer repeated questions why the reports were not placed on the elicense website, which is common procedure to post after an investigation is concluded.

After deadline Boyle responded to the Republican American’s questions, stating that all documents are available to the public once an investigation has been closed. He added that there can be delays with posting the documents to elicense.ct.gov due to the availability of staff working on numerous projects with competing priorities.

He added the independent monitor is in the process of being finalized.

Boyle said that Waterbury Hospital is complying with the most recent plans of corrections.

A plan of correction report on July 25 states that based on “clinical records, hospital documentation, policies and staff interview for 1 of 4 patients, the hospital failed to ensure that a patient with a critical lab value was transferred to a higher level of care, ICU.” (It states further that) “nursing staff failed to implement cardiac monitoring and arrange for transfer to the ICU and failed to implement physician orders, including administration of medications and obtaining a blood specimen.” The report states further that the patient then suffered a cardiac arrest on Feb. 10 of last year.

This is the second patient to die at Waterbury Hospital, according to inspection reports from DPH. On Dec. 16, 2022, a patient died due to delays in “blood testing.” In another incident, the report states that the hospital “failed to investigate an injury (rib fractures) of unknown origin” concerning a patient at the beginning of 2024.

In another unannounced visit from DPH, which concluded on May 10, the plan of correction report stated that “the hospital failed to protect the patient from verbal abuse and multiple staff members failed to immediately report the witnessed abuse in accordance with hospital policy.” The report further states that on April 17, the patient “became upset about the noise of the call bells and started to scream to turn them off” and that the patient screamed profanities at the nurse. In response, the report states that the nurse used “profanities at the patient and gestured her middle finger at the patient.”

Last month, Gov. Ned Lamont told Prospect Medical Holdings, which owns Waterbury Hospital, it should install an independent monitor. Lamont has said he remains concerned about patient care and safety at all of Prospect’s hospitals as a legal battle between Yale New Haven Health and Prospect drags on concerning the sale of Prospect’s hospitals, which also include Manchester Memorial and Rockville General in Vernon. With no deal in sight, two unions at Waterbury Hospital, and state and local leaders worry patient care is at risk, alleging inadequate staffing and equipment, and a failure to follow requirements of a new staffing law.

Ed Gadomski, internal organizer for the Connecticut Health Care Associates District 1199 Waterbury Hospital and Tech unions, has said nearly every department is understaffed as state-mandated staffing levels are not being met. He cited a 50% vacancy rate in the operating room and that nurses told him they are overseeing seven to eight patients at a time, a violation of the standard ratio of one nurse to five patients. Gadomski also noted nurses are exceeding their allotted sick time because they are exhausted.

Gadomski said nothing has changed at the hospital and he is still concerned about staffing levels. He still has yet to hear from the Department of Public Health concerning his complaint filed in January 2024 that state mandated staffing levels are not being met.

“Things remain unsafe for patient care,” he said.

Connecticut Health Care Associates District 1199 Waterbury Hospital held a no-confidence vote on Sept. 27 with 133 nurses – or 96% – calling for the dismissal of the hospital’s Chief Nursing Officer Michelle Diaz due to staff shortages and what they referred to as ineffective leadership.

He said the administration has not responded to the union’s vote of no confidence in Diaz.

“They swept it under the rug and things remain the way they are,” he said.

Xhihani said “only a minority of nurses participated in a vote of no confidence, which targeted one individual and was put forward by the union to distract our team and our community.” Gadomski said that many nurses did not vote because they feared retaliation.

Mayor Paul K. Pernerewski Jr. said there needs to be a transition at Waterbury Hospital.

“The longer this drags out, the harder it is going to be to bring that hospital up to its full standard,” he said. “Every day that goes by things are getting a little worse at Waterbury. Prospect has no interest in operating a hospital. If the sale does not take place in relatively short order, there is a possibility that the hospital could close.”

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