Civita Care Center: Aide Told Resident to Change Himself - CT
The exchange happened on July 14, 2025, during the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift. Federal inspectors documented it two months later, on August 19, 2025, after a complaint brought them to the 2028 Bridgeport Avenue facility.
The resident at the center of it, identified in inspection records as Resident #2, told inspectors what happened when he rang the call bell that evening. The first time, Nursing Assistant #1 responded through the intercom and told him he would have to wait for his assigned aide. Resident #2 rang again. That second call is where the exchange turned.
According to Resident #2, the aide came back on the intercom and said: I'll take your call bell away. Change yourself. I'm the supervisor, NA, Administrator. This is why you're garbage, and you can't walk.
Care that evening was provided by a different aide.
Another resident, Resident #4, was in a position to hear what was said. Inspectors noted that Resident #4 was alert and oriented, with a BIMS cognitive score of 14, the upper end of the scale. He confirmed hearing the aide tell Resident #2 to go change himself and that he would take the call bell away.
The nursing assistant, when inspectors interviewed him on August 19, gave a different account of what he said, but acknowledged the confrontation happened and that it went wrong. He told inspectors that Resident #2 had called back quickly after the first intercom exchange and began using profanities and making racial threats toward him. He said he "lost it." He acknowledged telling Resident #2 he could go change himself and that he would take the call bell if the resident kept ringing. He denied making the other statements Resident #2 described, including the comments about the resident's inability to walk and the word "garbage."
"He indicated he shouldn't have said what he said."
That is the clearest sentence in the inspection report. The aide said it himself.
Standing at the nurse's station while this played out was LPN #1. She told inspectors she heard the aide say "f you, I am not coming" into what she initially thought was a cellphone. She said his demeanor was "very harsh and intimidating." Then she realized he was speaking into the call bell intercom, not a phone.
She did not report what she heard. She told inspectors she hadn't reported it because she didn't know who was on the other end of the intercom. That explanation is difficult to follow: she knew the aide was responding to a resident's call bell. She described his tone as harsh and intimidating. She heard him say "f you, I am not coming" to whoever was on that intercom. She said nothing to anyone.
It was not LPN #1 who reported the incident. It was Resident #3, a different resident, who came forward the following day, July 15, and told the facility that the aide had spoken inappropriately to Resident #2.
The Director of Nursing told inspectors that after Resident #3's report, the facility conducted interviews with staff and residents. Their conclusion: abuse could not be substantiated. The DON described what happened as "a lack of judgment by NA #1 regarding customer service and the facility code of conduct."
Customer service.
The aide was terminated. The facility's own summary of its internal investigation, reviewed by inspectors, acknowledged that abuse could not be confirmed but that the aide had shown a "lack of judgment" in how he interacted with the resident. That framing, abuse unsubstantiated, lack of judgment identified, is the institutional language facilities reach for when the facts are uncomfortable but the investigation has room to breathe.
What the facts show is this: a resident rang a call bell because he needed help. An aide told him through an intercom that he could change himself. The aide threatened to take away the call bell, the one piece of equipment a nursing home resident has to summon help when he cannot get up on his own. A second resident heard it. A licensed nurse heard part of it and did not report it. The resident who was told he was garbage and couldn't walk received his care that night from someone else.
The facility's own verbal abuse policy, reviewed by inspectors during the survey, defines verbal abuse as the use of oral communication that willfully includes disparaging and derogatory terms to residents, regardless of the resident's age, ability to comprehend, or disability. The policy states that this applies to staff-to-resident abuse and is part of the facility's obligation to protect residents' health, welfare, and rights.
The DON did not characterize what the aide said as verbal abuse. The facility's conclusion was that it could not be substantiated.
Inspectors classified the violation as causing minimal harm or potential for actual harm, the lower end of the severity scale. The deficiency was cited under the federal standard requiring facilities to protect residents from abuse, which includes verbal abuse.
There are things the inspection report does not resolve. It does not say whether Resident #2 was ever told the aide had been fired, or whether anyone from the facility spoke with him afterward about what had happened. It does not say whether LPN #1 faced any consequences for hearing a harsh and intimidating intercom exchange and deciding not to report it. The report notes that an interview with Resident #3, the person who actually came forward and triggered the investigation, could not be obtained during the survey.
The aide who told a resident he was garbage and couldn't walk is no longer employed at Civita Care Center. What is not recorded anywhere in the inspection report is whether anyone sat with Resident #2, after the investigation concluded and the aide was gone, and acknowledged that what was said to him through that intercom was wrong.
He had rung a call bell because he needed help. The response he got told him he was garbage and he couldn't walk and he could change himself. Then a different aide came and provided his care, and the night went on.
Full Inspection Report
The details above represent a summary of key findings. View the complete inspection report for Civita Care Center At Milford from 2025-08-19 including all violations, facility responses, and corrective action plans.
Download the official CMS inspection PDF from Medicare.gov
Additional Resources
Data source: This article is based on inspection data downloaded directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via Medicare.gov. CMS releases inspection reports in bulk; we publish the findings as documented by state surveyors in the official Form CMS-2567 Statement of Deficiencies.
Plan of correction: The CMS report we receive does not include the facility's plan of correction. Facilities submit plans of correction separately to state survey agencies and those responses may not be reflected in CMS data at the time of publication. The absence of a plan of correction in our data does not mean one was not filed. Readers who want information about corrective steps taken are encouraged to contact the facility directly or their state survey agency.
Corrections may have occurred: Inspection reports reflect conditions observed on the date of the survey. Facilities may have implemented corrections, staffing changes, additional training, or other remediation since the report was issued. We report what CMS provides and encourage readers to seek current information from the facility.
Editorial process: Inspection findings are extracted from CMS source documents and synthesized using AI, reviewed for factual accuracy against the original report by our editorial team.
Professional review: All content reviewed by Christopher F. Nesbitt, Sr., NH EMT & BU-trained Paralegal.
Last verified: September 22, 2026 · Our methodology
CIVITA CARE CENTER AT MILFORD in MILFORD, CT was cited for violations during a health inspection on August 19, 2025.
The exchange happened on July 14, 2025, during the 3 p.m.
Health inspections identify deficiencies that facilities must correct. Violations range from minor documentation issues to serious safety concerns. Review the full report below for specific details and facility response.