Several critical services at Rockville General Hospital in Vernon have remained closed since March 2020, according to a report filed in federal bankruptcy court Monday.
The closures at Rockville — one of three Connecticut hospitals owned by Prospect Medical Holdings, which filed for bankruptcy in January — appear to violate state law governing approvals of major health care transactions. In Connecticut, providers must obtain state permission, known as a “certificate of need,” before making substantial changes in the health care sector, including terminating services.
State law defines a termination of services as “the cessation of any services for a period greater than one hundred eighty days.” Termination of services by a hospital without state approval can result in civil penalties of up to $1,000 per day.
Wendy Fuchs, a spokesperson with the Office of Health Strategy, the agency that oversees the certificate of need process, stopped short of saying the closures at Rockville violated of state law, but she acknowledged the office is conducting an investigation into service cuts at the hospital.
“The Office of Health Strategy (OHS) is conducting an ongoing inquiry regarding service terminations at Rockville General Hospital,” Fuchs said in an emailed statement.
The court-ordered report, conducted by the appointed patient care ombuds Suzanne Koenig, found that surgical services, as well as the intensive care and medical-surgical units at Rockville General, have remained closed since March 2020. Rockville still operates an emergency department where patients can get stabilized, the report noted, but those in need of admission are being transferred to Manchester Memorial Hospital, roughly 20 minutes away. Rockville also still operates inpatient psychiatry units, according to the report.
A spokesperson for Prospect Medical Holdings said that Rockville Hospital has “proceeded with full transparency regarding the service offerings at its hospitals” and any assumption that it did not go through required legal processes before terminating services is “false.”
In March 2020, Rockville obtained an emergency waiver from the state to temporarily halt surgical services in order to free up space for COVID patients. The waiver only applied to surgical services and expired on July 21, 2021, at which point all services should have resumed, a spokesperson with OHS confirmed in late 2023.
The service cuts by Prospect were originally highlighted in an October 2023 investigation published by the Connecticut Mirror, which also found that the state had been aware of the terminations since as far back as 2021.
In February 2022, OHS fined Rockville $118,000 for failing to seek permission for unit closures, but ultimately waived the fines, finding that there wasn’t substantial evidence that the hospital “willfully” terminated services, the threshold required by state law in order to impose fines on a hospital operator.
In October 2024, the office launched another investigation into the cuts, which is still ongoing after six months. Since the previous investigation, the state passed legislation to lower the threshold from “willfully” to “negligently” terminating services, Fuchs said.
Fuchs did not respond to a question about whether the state has plans in place to reopen the units.
Rep. Tammy Nuccio, R-Tolland, a state lawmaker who represents Vernon and was born at Rockville, lamented the state of the hospital in an interview Monday. “Everything that they used to do to provide services to the community are gone,” she said. “It’s a terrible disservice to the towns that used to go there.”
Prospect bankruptcy
California-based Prospect Medical Holdings filed for Chapter 11 in January in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Northern Texas. The court appointed Koenig, the patient care ombuds, to ensure that Prospect’s hospitals in Connecticut, as well as its facilities in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and California, would continue to provide high quality care throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.
Aside from the Rockville Hospital findings, the ombuds reported in Monday’s filing that Prospect hospitals’ administrators and providers remained committed to patients, the facilities continued to provide quality care and there weren’t any issues requiring the immediate attention of the court.
In Connecticut, in addition to the shuttered Rockville units, Koenig’s report noted long wait times at Waterbury Hospital’s emergency department and unsanitary conditions in the kitchen at Manchester Memorial Hospital. But the report added that both issues are being addressed by hospital administrators.
The ombuds will publish further reports on the quality of patient care every 60 days for the duration of the court proceedings. The reports will only investigate current conditions at the facilities and will not review past conditions of the hospitals.
But even before the bankruptcy filing, it was clear Connecticut’s Prospect-owned facilities, which the company acquired in 2016, faced challenges.
In August 2023, a cyberattack crippled operations at Prospect’s facilities around the country. The following month, the presidents of Prospect’s Connecticut hospitals warned the governor that the financial situation at all three hospitals was dire.
In October of last year, Prospect was hit with federal liens for failure to pay into the pension plan for its Connecticut employees. State inspectors have also documented rusting equipment in operating rooms at Waterbury Hospital, and payments to physicians at Manchester Memorial Hospital have reportedly been delayed.
The ombuds report offered some relief that the hospitals continue to provide high quality care. But the question of who will take over hospital operations, in the wake of Prospect’s bankruptcy, remains unclear.
In 2022, Yale New Haven Health reached a deal with Prospect to purchase the three facilities for $435 million, but the deal has since been mired in legal disputes, with the health systems suing and counter suing each other over the true value of the facilities. In February, a spokesperson with Yale said that reaching a deal appeared “impossible.”
A spokesperson with Yale New Haven Health declined to respond Monday to questions regarding the status of that deal and whether the system is considering a revised bid to purchase Prospect’s Connecticut hospitals for a lower price.
A spokesperson for Gov. Ned Lamont did not respond to a request for comment about the status of conversations with other potential buyers.
The governor has promised that the hospitals will stay open, despite bankruptcy and the search for a new buyer.
An agreement between Yale and Prospect, brokered by OHS in 2023 following the systems’ acquisition announcement, sought to consolidate Manchester Memorial and Rockville General Hospitals under one license and allowed for the permanent closure of Rockville’s medical surgical inpatient and ICU services.
Nuccio said she was unaware of the arrangement.
“Why is OHS siding with these big hospitals to close services in rural areas and not looking out for what is in the best interest of residents and health care delivery?” Nuccio asked.
In response to an emailed question about whether OHS considered the closures of the units against patient needs in the area, Fuchs wrote that the agency “weighs healthcare access, affordability, equity and quality in all agreed settlements” and the Statewide Health Care Facility and Services Plan “guides every assessment.”
“Any potential sale of Rockville General Hospital will include considerations of supply of and demand for services in the service area,” Fuchs said.
Katy Golvala is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CT Mirror (ctmirror.org).
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