Residents of CT nursing home where woman died have to leave. There are 17 waiting for a new home

Hartford Courant – Thursday, March 26, 2026
By Livi Stanford

Nineteen Bickford Health Care Center residents have been transferred to other skilled nursing facilities after the Department of Social Services’ order to close the facility earlier this month. The order follows a state Department of Public Health investigation into the death of a patient who was able to leave the building unnoticed and died after spending hours out in the cold.

There are 17 residents remaining to be transferred out of the facility, according to Rep. Jane Garibay, a Windsor Democrat who is co-chair of the Aging Committee.

“The Long Term Care Ombudsman’s office is working diligently with the families to find homes north of Hartford in the area if possible,” Garibay said.

Commissioner of Social Services Andrea Barton Reeves appointed Katharine Sacks temporary manager of Bickford Health Care Center to oversee the operation to transfer the patients to other facilities.

Sacks told the Courant that the facility will “complete tasks under the consent orders by the middle of next week unless there are unexpected developments.”

The Department of Social Services consent order requires the residents to be transferred to other facilities by April 10.

Garibay and other legislators say that nursing home closures such as Bickford Health Care Center impact residents, calling it traumatic and that one closure is too many.

For residents, Garibay said the transition can be especially “difficult because as a person ages, you are used to things the way they are and routine is so important.

“And all of a sudden you’re being taken by ambulance to a new place with new people you don’t know,” she said.

The move also affects families, Garibay said.

“I know of five families that were very close,” Garibay said, referring to families at Bickford Health Care Center.

“They all took care of each other’s loved ones,” she said. “If one couldn’t make it that night to feed her mom dinner, the other one jumped in. So these are real families together looking out for their loved ones. And many of them moved to Windsor Locks so they could be close by. So for them, this is devastating. And even though there’s been lots of concerns over the past couple of years and many reports to DPH, etc., the outcome is still not what the family members would have wanted.”

She said most families at Bickford who were able to help each other are now separated.

Mairead Painter, the state’s long-term care ombudsman, said in an email that she strongly encouraged “residents and other family members to go see other homes and talk to people living there.

“Attending a meal or speaking to the resident council president can give them an idea about what life in that nursing home is like,” she said.

She said the regional ombudsman follows up after transitions and “work to support them as they adjust to their new home.”

Sen. Saud Anwar, co-chair of the state’s Public Health Committee, said seniors who are living in nursing facilities consider them their home.

“To move people out of their home has a negative impact on their well-being,” he said. “This should be considered a last resort and should be treated with extreme care that their comfort and their network of friends are not going to be disrupted and they will not be away from their loved ones and families who deeply care about them.”

Senate Republican Leader Stephen Harding of Brookfield said transferring residents with “presumably significant medical conditions is dangerous,” referring in general to the transfer of residents from nursing home facilities.

“It’s dangerous to their ongoing health,” he said. “And on top of that, it’s very difficult for families as well, who have a very difficult choice of putting a family member in a nursing home and wanting to be able to see them on a routine basis.”

The state Department of Public Health did not respond in time for this article regarding how many nursing homes have closed in the state in the last two years and what the agency tells families in such a transition.

Cause and manner of death still pending

The DSS summary order regarding Bickford said “the health, safety, and welfare of patients” in the facility is “jeopardized.”

Margaret Healey, a 93-year-old Alzheimer’s patient and resident at Bickford Health Care Center in Windsor Locks, was outside for more than three hours on Feb. 8 before being found by staff, Windsor Locks police said.

Police said Healey left the building at 1:50 a.m. and that staff have told police that they didn’t know Healey was missing from her bed until 4:45 a.m. at which time they started searching for her, first inside the building and then outside.

A DPH investigation found the facility violated numerous regulations of Connecticut state agencies, including not notifying the police department in a timely manner after Healey went missing and failing to check the function of an alert system that helps ensure patients who have Alzheimer’s, such as Healey, avoid leaving the facility, as wandering is a common behavior in such patients.

When staff found Healey on Feb. 8, police have said, she was unresponsive in the snow about 40 feet from the building. Staff brought a wheelchair to bring her back inside, where they used blankets and tried to raise her body temperature, Lt. Paul Cherniack of the Windsor Locks Police has said. Police were not called until 6:23 a.m., Cherniack said. EMTs on the scene pronounced Healey dead at 6:46 a.m. at the long-term care facility.

A DPH investigation found the facility “failed to ensure its physician was notified of a resident’s change in condition; failed to notify the local police department within 15 minutes when a resident was missing from a facility; and failed to notify emergency services timely when a resident was found unresponsive outside the building in below freezing temperatures.”

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, said in an email to the Courant Wednesday that the cause and manner of death concerning Healey are still pending.

Lt. Paul Cherniack said in an email, “the Windsor Locks Police Department has conducted extensive interviews with individuals connected to Bickford Health Care Center as part of this ongoing investigation.

“Our efforts are currently paused as we await critical reports from the Chief Medical Examiner’s Office, which are essential to determining the next steps in this death investigation,” Cherniack said.

A difficult transition

Mary Grace Cavallo, a former Waterbury Board of Aldermen member, remembers when she transferred her father, Augusto Cavallo, out of the Abbott Terrace Health Center when it closed in 2024.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services terminated funding to the facility because of the “facility’s failure to meet Medicare’s basic health and safety requirements,” the Connecticut Mirror reported.

She said the transition to a new facility took nearly six months.

“He was having a lot of problems,” she said, of her father who has dementia.

“They kept seeing him in the hospital,” she said. “It seems they go backward with their health until they adjust to the facility.”

Rep. Ron Napoli, a Waterbury Democrat and co-chair of the Bonding Subcommittee, remembered when the facility closed in Waterbury.

“Those were people who were from Waterbury whose families lived in the area as well so many people who were connected to the community and their families,” he said. “I think when you want to move someone, especially someone who’s elderly to a whole new environment, I don’t see how that’s productive in any way. I think you’re really taking people away from not just their homes but their communities.”

Napoli said he remembers Healey as she was his theology teacher in high school.

“I was lucky to have her as a teacher and she was also a neighbor,” he said. “A really wonderful person to know who cared about her community.”

‘We have to hold people accountable’

In light of the incidents at Bickford, Garibay said it is important to have good oversight and training for CNAs and nurses, ensuring a strong workforce.

She said it is also important to hold nursing homes accountable.

Asked how that can be achieved and Garibay said, “I think we could have done as a state a better job of responding to complaints that were happening.

“When you go into a nursing home to survey … you have to look around and you have to watch and you have to listen because these are issues that have been going on for years,” she said.

She said internally DPH has to look at how they respond to these situations.

“I am hoping that they can self-review to a certain extent because we’re on the outside,” she said.

She said Connecticut is an aging state and that by 2040, 40% of the population will be over 60.

“We just have to do better,” she said. “And we have to have protections in place. No one’s asking that every facility has to be the Taj Mahal, but they have to be clean. They have to be safe.”

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