** About Us **
We are a non-profit community hospital with more than 100 years of experience in providing high-quality, accessible health care to central Vermont. Started by Dr. John Gifford in 1903, Gifford has changed considerably over the years, but in many ways has remained the same.
We have added substantial technology, square footage and personnel since the early days. Gifford now has more than 500 employees at the main Randolph campus and our outlying family health centers and specialty clinics. We offer diagnostic technologies that include a 40-slice CT scanner, a mobile MRI unit and a filmless radiology system (PACS). Our 25-bed Critical Access Hospital with a rehabilitation unit and Birthing Center is recognized around the state. We have an attached 30-bed nursing home with an extensive waiting list and numerous quality awards to its credit, a childcare center, a Thrift Shop, an Adult Day Program and so much more. We’re extremely proud of those additions, our progressive can-do attitude, and our financial stability.
We also take pride in what we have retained from our modest beginnings. Just like Dr. Gifford, today’s medical providers place patient care first. Our providers, many of whom have been with us for decades, are committed to compassionately caring for patients, improving lives and bettering overall community health. We support the local community by purchasing locally grown produce for our patient and staff meals, we offer annual community health grants, staff members donate countless hours to organizations and schools, and we invest in the local economy.
We are an organization truly committed to you, and we are thankful for the privilege of providing you medical care. Please read about the hospital’s achievements in our History section, meet our providers in our Medical Staff section and learn about the hospital’s many offerings in our Services section. As always
History Of Gifford Medical Center
** The History of Gifford Medical Center **
Shortly after the turn of the 20th century, John Gifford, a popular local physician and the son of a Randolph farmer, took up as a personal cause the creation of a hospital in his home town. In 1903, he purchased the Seldon Holman house on South Main Street, at the site of today’s Gifford Medical Center – and with two nurses, Dr. Gifford established a private hospital. Two years later, discouraged by the high expenses and demands that came with running a small hospital alone, Dr. Gifford made plans to close his hospital.
It was then that several local leaders, realizing the value of the hospital, stepped forward to create a corporation that would purchase the hospital and keep it open. Offering shares of capital stock to the community at $25 a piece, they easily raised $7,500 that was needed to keep the doors open. The hospital became the Randolph Sanatorium, with Dr. Gifford as its medical director. Student nurses were a part of the hospital from the very beginning and in 1905, a two-year nursing program was established.
In 1906, Dr. Gifford hired Eliza Folsom, R.N. from Mary Fletcher Hospital in Burlington to be the Superintendent of Nurses and the Sanatorium graduated its first class in 1908. After her marriage to Dr. Gifford in 1909, Miss Folsom resigned as Superintendent. The last class of nurses to graduate from Gifford was in 1955.
In 1909, the corporation acknowledged its first two gifts from non-shareholders, $100 each. These gifts were used to start the Hospital Endowment Fund. In 1924, with the Sanatorium firmly established in town, the corporation reorganized itself into a non-profit corporation, still dependent on the community for support.
In 1933, Dr. John Gifford nicked his finger while performing surgery on a patient with a streptococcus infection. He contracted the then-deadly infection and died several weeks later despite treatment from the best specialists and staff at Deaconess Hospital in Boston.
After his death, the shareholders unanimously voted to change the Sanatorium’s name to Gifford Memorial Hospital to honor the memory of the doctor whose vision laid Gifford’s foundation.
