Chelsea Health Center
Contact us356 VT Rte. 110, Chelsea, VT 05038 Phone (802) 685-4400 Fax (802) 685-4329 Our providersOffice hours Monday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesday 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For emergency care after office hours, please call |
Now in a brand new building beside the former health center off Route 110, the Chelsea clinic is the area's source for family care. The Clara Martin Center also offers mental health services at the health center.
In Chelsea, providers work as a team to compassionately attend to your health care needs. Office hours listed above are by appointment. The Chelsea Health Center makes every attempt to schedule your appointment with your provider, but if the situation is urgent, you will be given the next available appointment.
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Learn more about our story
The Chelsea Health Center: A staple of the community then and now
Surely Gov. Wilson would be proud.
Fifty-six years after its opening, the beloved Chelsea Health Center – which then-Gov. Stanley Wilson pushed to create – is once again new and still providing the local care the governor first envisioned.
The story goes that local boys Luke Howe and Brewster Martin were in their senior year of medical school at the University of Vermont when they were called to the dean’s office. They arrived to find then-governor and Chelsea native Stanley Wilson. Concerned about the lack of consistent local health care, Gov. Wilson was of a mind to start a local health center if Luke and Brewster would practice there.
The governor planned to buy the local “Comstock House” and raise money to have it renovated into a health center. He followed through on his offer. The health center opened on Aug. 3, 1953.
In the more than 50 years since, the clinic has seen some internal renovations, suffered the loss of the beloved Dr. Martin, welcomed a variety of primary health care providers in his wake and is now new again.
Thanks to the Chelsea Health Center community board, a generous $700,000 bequest from former resident Kathryn Avery and a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development loan, the Chelsea clinic was rebuilt in 2009 beside the Comstock House. The new clinic continues a tradition of local care in a community that takes pride in its cohesiveness.
Starr Strong is a physician assistant, who started at the health center 16 years ago.
“This is what I wanted to do,” Starr says of providing family medicine in a rural community. “This is what I went to PA school to do when I was 27.”
“We do cradle to grave care,” says Starr. “It’s smaller so the pace is different. The relationships are different because we’re more rooted in the community.”
Starr is one of three health care providers currently caring for generations ofChelsea and area residents. Family physicians Dr. Robert Kiess and Dr. Brian Sargent both joined the practice in 2008.
Both have been family physicians for decades, but not until joining the Chelsea Health Center did Dr. Kiess truly discover the best of community-based medicine.
The providers occasionally do house calls. The staff has done things like gather their lunch money to buy a gas card for a patient whose husband was at Fletcher Allen Health Care. They answer questions at random in the community about fevers and bowel movements (or a lack there of) – particularly long-time nurse and local resident Judy Alexander who’s often called at home.
It’s the kind of community medicine that’s worked well for generations and in Chelsea – whether in a building old or new – is still the way of life.
“I’ve taken this long journey in the medical field and arrived home,” says Dr. Kiess. “This is like old-fashioned medicine here.”
Read one patient's story _________________________________________________________________________ Ethan HubbardAuthor, photographer, world traveler, Gifford patientEthan Hubbard hails from “down country.” Specifically, Connecticut, but the famed author, photographer and world traveler has been calling Vermont his home for 45 years. He moved here after college, living in first the Mad River Valley and then Craftsbury before moving to Washington 22 years ago.
“I wanted to go to a jolly town,” says Ethan of what attracted him to the Chelsea area. “Craftsbury was austere. Chelsea was jolly, happy … everyone was really loud. It’s like a big, jolly family. “It’s very, very much a Vermont town.” And for all his world travels – or perhaps because of it – Ethan likes Vermont towns, and unassuming Vermonters. In fact, if you didn’t know he was from “down country,” you might think he was one. He has strong local ties – one of which is with his local health center. Ethan has been going to Chelsea Health Center since he first moved to the area and Dr. Brewster Martin was still treating patients. Thurmond Knight – known for launching Gifford’s Birthing Center – helped bring Ethan’s son into the world. And it’s Ethan’s own large black and white pictures timelessly depicting older Chelsea residents that don the walls of the Chelsea Health Center. “It’s a great health center. They’re very, very efficient. Extremely so. They bend over backward to get you in,” says Ethan, who now sees Chelsea family physician Dr. Robert Kiess. “I think he’s great,” Ethan says of Dr. Kiess. “He’s got a great manner. You go in there and he’s got time for you. He really has a great manner and reassures you.” Chelsea is Ethan’s source for primary care. And Gifford is his source for specialty care. He had toe surgery at Gifford recently with Sharon podiatrist Dr. Rob Rinaldi and so enjoyed the experience that he penned a letter to the editor of The Herald. “We are so fortunate to have a hospital with the care and expertise of Gifford. Year after year I go there for some reason and each time I am greeted by receptionists who bend over backward to appease my anxiety and to smoothly and quickly direct me to the next phase of my procedure there. Simply put, Gifford is the best! “I mean I love Gifford,” says Ethan. “It’s a great hospital.” __________________________________________________________________________ |
