Home Care In Willimantic, CT

Bill Rood has a heart for Memorial Day, honoring those who have given their lives to their country, as well as veterans of the armed services.

This year, he will speak at Willimantic’s annual Memorial Day ceremony on his favorite topic: freedom. He’ll be there because of a procedure he underwent this month at UConn John Dempsey Hospital that gave him a new aortic valve.

Rood, 83, was having a hard time last fall with a severe cough that resulted in his first hospitalization. “I was sick in November. … I had a bad cough. I just couldn’t shake it,” he said.

“I was going to work every day but this cough was just debilitating. I just couldn’t seem to shake it. I had a dry, hacking cough all the time,” he said.

Now, Rood said he has led “pretty much a normal life” since he underwent a transcatheter atrial valve replacement, or TAVR. While his groin is black and blue still, “I’m in pretty good shape,” he said. “I can walk across the field itself without having to stop for breath. I couldn’t make it all the way. Life is a lot better.”

Rood, who lives in north Windham, founded Windham Industries, a metalwork manufacturer that makes railings, stairs and mezzanines for building contractors, in 1974. He still does estimating and other paperwork while he turns the business over to his son.

UConn Health’s TAVR program recently marked its 25th procedure under Dr. Chittoor Sai Sudhakar, chief of cardiothoracic surgery, working with Dr. JuYong Lee, director of UConn Health’s Structural Heart Program.

When Sai Sudhakar saw Rood, “we noticed that he was having severe aortic stenosis, which is the narrowing of the valve and that does not allow blood to flow through as easily to the rest of the body … and the rest of the body does not get enough blood,” he said.

“So traditionally, when they’re symptomatic like that, you know that survival gets decreased,” he said.

The aortic valve can narrow with age, affecting more than 20% of people over 65, according to UConn Health. It can lead to heart failure and possibly death if untreated.

Sai Sudhakar has done more than 250 TAVR procedures in his career. “As a chief of cardiac surgery, I was very much interested in bringing the technology here,” he said. “Obviously any procedure is not a single-man show. It is a team effort. And we have a dedicated team to move this program forward.”

“In the past when the aortic valve is tight, narrowed, they had to open the chest and open the heart to take the old valve out and place a new valve,” Lee said. “There’s more increased risk. But recently with this transcatheter aortic valve replacement … we actually place a catheter in the femoral artery in the groin.”

A new aortic valve is sent on a wire at the tip of the catheter to the heart, pushing the old valve, which helps anchor the new one, to the side.

Doctors first gave Rood X-rays and checked for Lyme disease, since Rood spends a lot of time outdoors, tending to his honeybees. He was sent home, but came back in December and was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and fluid in his lungs, “in other words, pneumonia,” he said.

“And they gave me a prescription and the doctor said, This is all I can do. If you’re not better in 24 to 48 hours you’ve got to call the emergency room,” Rood said. “Forty-eight hours later I was in the emergency room. I was literally coughing 24 hours a day nonstop.”

He also could not walk up a flight of stairs. “I’d just have to stop and hold on to the rails because I couldn’t make it,” he said.

Hospitalized again, Rood spent six days on antibiotics. “They told me I was the sickest person on the floor and I didn’t understand why they were saying that, because I didn’t think I really felt that bad after the first or second day,” Rood said.

His cough was under control and he could sleep again.

Lee told Rood they could help him but various tests delayed his procedure, which was done May 11. He went home the next day. “I was amazed at what I could do compared to what I had before,” he said: climbing stairs, walking up the slight hill from his neighbor’s house, things he couldn’t do before.

And he’ll be able to take part in his annual ritual of participating in Memorial Day ceremonies.

“I’ve always been concerned about Memorial Day … In our town, they have what they call a pilgrimage,” visiting eight cemeteries and a POW memorial in town, he said.

“They raise a flag … they lay a wreath down and they play the taps. The chaplain says a prayer and then we go on to the next one,” Rood said. “The last one is kind of special … that’s a special memorial for POWs.”

Finally, there is a speech. “This year they asked me to give it and when they told me this I had to think about what to do,” he said. “At that point I started to meet with the people at UConn and they said, Yes, you can do this. You’ll be ready for it by that time.”

Rood’s theme will be freedom. “I don’t think people really understand why people do things that they do,” he said. “And I think that people have a desire for freedom. People have come to this country for freedom. They’re still coming to this country for freedom. … And I’m not really opposed to people immigrating to the United States.”

However, Rood is concerned “when they overwhelm our borders and it’s not done in any kind of orderly fashion whatsoever. We shouldn’t be just a territory; we should be a nation. Our borders should be protected.”

Ed Stannard can be reached at [email protected].

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It is a unique and long-lasting Fourth of July tradition here in Connecticut - the “Boom Box Parade" - and on Tuesday, it took to the streets of Willimantic for the 38^th time.

What may be an antique to some, is the centerpiece attraction at this celebration. Portable stereos, a 1980s relic, provided the soundtrack for the eclectic street party.

“Every year I come,” said Glastonbury’s Amy Bouchard. “I was so excited that it stopped raining so we could come.”

Sandwiched between morning rain and afternoon thunderstorms, the tradition continued.

“I came prepared,” said Victoria Thomas, showing her umbrella.

Luckily, no umbrella was necessary for the 11 a.m. start. Community members marched, as some did gymnastics-like flips and youth cheerleaders waived pom-poms.

The tradition dates back to 1986. City leaders and WILI radio creatively found a solution to not having a marching band, instead inviting people to march with boom box stereos.

Many people, like Christopher Dean, were marching while holding their radios high above their head.

“They’re sore,” said Dean with a laugh, describing how his arms felt after marching the parade’s distance while hoisting his boom box.

With costume-clad marchers, a wide variety of vehicles and floats, community pride was clear. Even Windham’s mayor, with his grandson on his shoulders, had a radio blaring.

“I’ve used it in all 38 parades,” said Tom Devivo. “I’ve used it in every single one."

In outfits of red, white and blue, patriotism was on display as spectators celebrated America’s 247^th birthday and those in the Willimantic community wouldn’t miss the Boom Box Parade.

“It’s great. I come every year with the family. It’s awesome,” said Windham's Joseph George, while wearing American flag colors from head to toe.

Perhaps, though, no one was happier than one of the event’s founding fathers: WILI radio host Wayne Norman.

“Given the weather today, it was great,” he said, thankful for the droves of people who came out to celebrate the holiday in such a uniquely traditional fashion.

I moved back to Willimantic in 2021 after 15+ years in New York City and New Jersey — to find my hometown ranked by the CT Department of Economic and Community Development as the most distressed place in Connecticut in 2023.

Willimantic’s distress is part of the perennial problems of “poverty, low growth, vacancy, and aging” in older industrial cities. These conditions persistently puzzle local officials, chambers of commerce, and urban planners. Universities have been heralded as wonderful tools for economic (re)development, buzzed as part of an Eds and Meds strategy after widespread disinvestment and economic decline in cities across the US, with manufacturing contracting, closing, and relocating.

Willimantic, in the town of Windham, has Meds through Windham Community Memorial Hospital and Eds with Eastern Connecticut State University (ECSU) in its Victorian Hill section. The University of Connecticut is 10 minutes up Route 195.

A blessing for economic redevelopment? Perhaps not.

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower, Trinity College Professor Davarian Baldwin challenges the Eds-centric economic engine narrative. Baldwin posits that universities cast shadows on the cities they inhabit as large landlords that don’t pay local taxes. Their expansions can raise housing costs and displace low-income residents, disproportionately “working-class people of color.” Students become desirable renters over low-income families as many people pay rent on the same property and have access to student loans, money as dependents, or guarantors of rent.

In New York City and New Jersey, I’d lived in the shadows of Columbia and Rutgers Universities, with many off-campus students struggling over rising housing costs, a telltale impact of gentrification. Columbia University’s West Harlem expansion was a case in point being linked to resident displacement.

I saw this in Willimantic as a CT State Community College professor at the Quinebaug Valley campus in Danielson and Willimantic. Many of my students shared experiences and struggles to find housing and stay housed. These experiences track with Windham County’s low-income rental housing shortage. On daily dog walks and runs around town, I saw homeless encampments off the Willimantic River downtown. This summer, I saw people’s tents cleared and posted “no camping” signs as ECSU students returned.

A Windham No Freeze Program representative shared with me that most of the unhoused people in encampments were known to the No Freeze Program and had Section 8 vouchers and no apartments willing to rent to them. Voucher discrimination is common and visible with rental postings saying, “no vouchers.”

Blanket voucher rejections are illegal in Connecticut. Rental discrimination is common, and vouchers are concentrated in high-poverty, high-rental markets like Willimantic. These rejections are matched by rental posts citing proximity to ECSU and UConn or even being student-specific housing, like Willimantic Rentals claims of “matching students with houses.” Their site has been inactive since Fall 2022.

Some houses are being rented to students and flipped. Visible in my neighborhood is 167 Summit Street, a 4-bedroom Victorian built in 1895, blocks from ECSU. It was purchased in 2018 for $150,000, posted for rent in 2019 for $1,900 a month (down from the original $2,495 price), and listed for sale in 2023 for $250,000 (from Zillow). The listed 2019 rental prices are above the 2021 Fair Market Rents of $1,695 for a 4-bedroom apartment in Windham County.

In a low-income housing shortage, how are inflated rents heralded as Eds progress in the most distressed place in Connecticut? Local officials and landlords are pushed to desire students who can pay more as part of the city as growth machine logic requires higher rent and property values to raise tax revenue, leaving out low-income renters. Willimantic is not alone in these dynamics. I saw it with Rutgers in New Brunswick and Columbia in Harlem, New York City.

The scale in Willimantic is different. ESCU students and UConn students outnumber Willimantic residents, so these changes have an outsized impact on the housing market.

When will local colleges and universities reckon with their imprint on cities and change policies and funding? Yale has begun to pay voluntary taxes to New Haven as a step.

In the name of social justice, let’s heed Davarian Baldwin’s critique of universities’ local impact and advocate for a fairer local calculus for towns and cities with colleges and universities.

Shelley Buchbinder lives in Willimantic.

The horrific death of a visiting nurse this week is prompting calls for action both in Washington and here at home in Connecticut.

Joyce Grayson was found inside a Willimantic home over the past weekend. Police say a patient is a suspect in her death.

NBC Connecticut's Mike Hydeck spoke with Sen. Saud Anwar (D-South Windsor), co-chair of the Public Health Committee, about it. Anwar is also a medical doctor.

Mike Hydeck: So first up - a visiting nurse in Willimantic, she was treating a patient in a halfway house. The questions come to mind, so many of them. Why was she allowed to go in that house alone in a situation where we knew this person had a violent past? This is scary. And it caused all of us pause. What happened here?

Saud Anwar: Yeah, first, Mike my heart goes out to Joyce and her family and every healthcare worker, including home health workers, but literally every healthcare worker is, we're all grieving. When I look at this case, it's even more heartbreaking because this should not have happened. This was preventable. And that's why we as a legislative body, we are going to do whatever it takes to make sure that we protect each and every healthcare worker. We already have passed bills to protect healthcare workers. But we have not done enough for home health workers. And I think this is what we will be working on going forward.

Mike Hydeck: Is it right now, as it stands with the state, because we know it's loosely regulated from other stories regarding other patient conversations with us. Is it based on the company on what their regulations are and if she's allowed to go into that house alone? You had mentioned earlier this week that loopholes were an issue. Is that one of the loopholes?

Saud Anwar: So I think what has happened is that some of the companies are also not following the regulations, but also the type of population that they're serving may have an impact as well. But the state needs to put laws to require these companies to have protections and safety net that needs to be created.

Face the Facts with NBC Connecticut goes beyond the headlines, asking newsmakers the tough questions, giving an in-depth analysis of the big stories.

Mike Hydeck: What would you like to see as protections? One of the things you mentioned is either having someone entered the house with her, maybe a guard or I'm not sure. How does that work? How would it work?

Saud Anwar: So I think having safety committees within these home health services to look at every patient that they're going to see to know, what are the medical information that is going to give us insight, but also safety information for the staff that's going to visit. It's not only nurses, it's social workers, it's patient care attendants, everybody, there's so many people who provide care in homes. We want to make sure that whoever is going to enter that home, which is going to be their workplace, it's going to be safe from that individual or their families. And that's part of what the work needs to be advanced. So if this is a high risk situation, they go in pairs or they get an escort.

Mike Hydeck: So there's going to be situations where people are in traumatic situations, the patient is, and they do need help. But it doesn't mean somebody has to go into a situation like that by themselves.

Saud Anwar: Yes, we need to provide care to anybody who needs to care. Period. However, we need to make it safe for the person who's receiving it, but also the person who is providing it.

Mike Hydeck: How would you like to see that happen? Should companies be held responsible if they don't follow this? Can they have their license pulled? Do they get fined? What would you foresee happening in the future if they don't follow the regulations?

Saud Anwar: I think we have to make sure especially in a time when we don't even even have enough healthcare workers and we are trying to get more people to make this a career, we have to make sure there's zero tolerance for any kind of violence, attack on healthcare workers in any place. But more importantly, we need to make sure that employers are going to follow the rules. And they need to get paid for it too, because they are, right now the healthcare margins are so low that it's very difficult to provide escorts. But we will have to help that part, too.

Mike Hydeck: So we know the high cost of staying in the hospital, if you have to stay for an extended stay. The high cost of putting your your parents into a nursing home, it all contributes to the fact that it's very difficult to try to pay for medical bills these days. That led to the proliferation of these home healthcare agencies, which are kind of, it seems, loosely regulated. It could just be even we've done stories here on NBC Connecticut, where a home healthcare aide went in and ended up getting the financial information of a patient and that was injurious to their whole financial picture. Do these things need to be regulated across the board in a more stringent way, do you think?

Saud Anwar: Yeah. Mike, you're absolutely right. First, I think the best care is if we can provide it at home, that's the best place. As we are an aging society, more and more people will get their home and their health in their home environment. So the people who are going in their homes need to be safe. And the people providing that care have to be protected and then have that background check. We have that part fairly well taken care of. But the safety of the healthcare workers, we need to do a lot more on. This entire arena has, we need to have a look at it and see how we can improve this because this is the fastest growing segment in healthcare.

Mike Hydeck: So as we know, many departments in our state are understaffed. If this passes as a law, where's the check and balance? Do we have enough people to go and investigate a case where it sounds like it's going down a bad path before it gets tragic? I mean, do we have to add staff so you can even check up on this?

Saud Anwar: Yes, we do have staff in the state, but you're absolutely right. We don't have enough people in various agencies. So we will have to invest in that arena as well. So clearly, if we are going to regulate them more, more people need to watch that. And then we will have to invest in the Department of Public Health for that purpose.

Mike Hydeck: So how do you start? Will you be working on a bill to try to put before the next legislative session or what happens next?

Saud Anwar: So a few days ago, we all came together. We were legislators, bipartisan, everybody, the leadership included, and we feel this is important that we protect each and every healthcare worker, including the healthcare workers at home. So this will be one of our priorities to make sure that we do this right, and get all the stakeholders together and then make the bill which is going to be sustainable, safe for everyone.