Retired court-appointed receiver for nursing homes will be missed
One of the hardest-working people in Connecticut, who has spent virtually his whole life doing good, retired recently. What he accomplished should be shouted from the rooftops but few people know his name because the world in which he worked is not a world that is spoken about often. In many ways it is not that wellknown, yet it affects most of us intimately and inevitably.
The man is Timothy Coburn, and for decades he has functioned as a court-appointed “receiver,” a person who goes into nursing homes and other care facilities that are in trouble, financially and/or otherwise, and tries to save them. In these situations, the human stakes are very high. If the problems in a home cannot be fixed or the home cannot be sold, the home may have to be closed, resulting in transfer trauma risks for frail residents and patients and the loss of jobs for countless employees.
The world of nursing homes has recently become better publicized because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
With what they have gone through, these homes are now firmly in mythological territory, as is Mr. Coburn. I first became aware of Mr. Coburn and his world in July of 2012 when the care home I was living in was put into receivership by the Superior Court due to various problems. I was living in the care home because after I was declared disabled in 2004, I could not find housing assistance in Mansfield.
On the evening of July 18, 2012, after Mr. Coburn had just been appointed receiver of the home in which I lived, a quick but violent thunderstorm knocked out the power, and the generator failed. I called and reported the situation to Barbara Cass of the Department of Public Health, and within an hour a truck arrived hauling a new generator which was hooked up to restore power. Mr. Coburn had rented the generator. This is only one example of Mr. Coburn‘s constant generosity. If a home that he was in charge of needed something, he would go out right away and buy it with his own money, then later get reimbursed by the court. If anyone living in one of his homes had exceptional needs or circumstances, he accommodated them. He was always available to lend a helping hand, a listening ear, or a ride to dialysis.
Skilled-nursing facilities have been his specialty. A nursing home receivership usually lasts about two years, but Mr. Coburn‘s last one ran through the pandemic and is approaching four under another receiver. Miraculously, he remained healthy through most of the pandemic. Few of us can imagine what he and all those responsible for running the homes went through during the pandemic. But if you visit the homes now, and even more so if you live in the homes, you can see and feel the pandemic‘s mark, almost as if you were visiting a country where a terrible war was fought: the bodies of the casualties are gone, but you can feel their presence everywhere. It is quiet and peaceful, yet with echoes of an unspeakable past, and the words “God willing” are appended to every plan.
This is the world that Mr. Coburn left, having served the frailest citizens of our state during both peace and metaphoric wartime. It was in these homes that the most helpless of the pandemic‘s victims died, and that many of the most courageous of the healthcare workers fought to save as many as they could, and to save themselves. Many people shun the world of these homes even if they have family members living in them. This is a tragedy in many ways, because there are lessons to be learned in the homes that cannot be learned from books, lessons for the heart as well as the mind, lessons in compassion and even keys to the mysteries of war and peace. Eventually, most of us will occupy a bed in one of these homes. Why wait until then to visit?
If more people embraced the homes with the love, compassion and enthusiasm of Mr. Coburn, it would be a better world for all of us, both inside and outside the homes. If there is one sure lesson that can be learned from the pandemic and the homes, this is it.