** Mission **
Mission: The Otis Health Care Center promotes the health and well-being of the community by providing quality health care services in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.
History Of Grace Cottage Hospital
** History **
In 1844, Rev. Horace Fletcher built a spacious house in Townshend, Vermont. The house remained in the Fletcher family, and in 1905 Harriet Fletcher invited Miss Mary Plumb, a teacher at Leland & Gray Seminary, to share her home. Miss Plumb inherited the house after Miss Fletcher’s death. When she retired, she rented the downstairs to the new doctor in town, Dr. Carlos Otis and his wife, Ruth. From that day in 1938, it served as both home and doctor’s office until Miss Plumb offered the house to Dr. Otis to fulfill his dream of opening a hospital. With the promise of initial financing from Dr. Otis’ friend and neighbor, Dr. Abel Grout, the hospital was named after his wife, Grace. Other friends made substantial donations and sparked fund drives, and the community jumped in to form the Grace Cottage Hospital Auxiliary.
All these efforts paid off, and Grace Cottage Hospital opened on August 7, 1949. The work of the hospital began that night when Dr. Otis delivered its first baby. Within a year, Hattie Stratton’s house next door was added as specified in her will. In 1978 Ruth Heins gave her house up the street from the hospital. Dr. Otis served as hospital administrator until 1990 and as chairman of the board until he died in 1994. In 1992 the Wolff Outpatient building was opened; the hospital opened the Messenger Valley Pharmacy across the street in 1996; and in 1998 Grace Cottage Hospital moved up the hillside into a brand new building behind the original house where Grace Cottage Family Health is now located.
Over sixty year later, Grace Cottage Hospital, a Critical Access Hospital, employs 160 people, and still adheres to Dr. Otis’ very specific vision of running a hospital that doesn’t look or feel like a hospital, while providing modern medical care. Its small size is perhaps its greatest strength, because it makes possible the warm, individualized, professional service on which the hospital has built its well-deserved reputation.
Grace Cottage Hospital is a 19-bed inpatient facility for acute and rehabilitative care. It is equipped with a 24-hour emergency department for critical care treatment, a hospice suite, rehabilitation department and state-of-the-art laboratory and radiology departments. Rehab patients are seen for multiple daily sessions by the 15 physical, occupational and speech therapists. And members of the public can make appointments for therapy in the Wolff Outpatient Building. The Lab and Radiology departments are also open to members of the public with a written doctor’s order.
Grace Cottage Family Health is a federally certified Rural Health Clinic. Its 14 practitioners provide family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, mental health and chiropractic care to approximately 7,000 individual patients annually. The Messenger Valley Pharmacy fills over 57,000 prescriptions a year, is a full-service pharmacy open to the public, and accepts all physicians’ prescriptions (including veterinarians’) and most health insurance programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. The Heins Building houses hospital and community administrative offices, the 24-hour ambulance crew for Rescue Inc, and the front half of the building is now the bright, spacious Community Wellness Center.
The staff at Grace Cottage is committed to live up to the hospital’s mission of excellence in healthcare and well-being, and to keep its promise to the community of providing patient care second to none.
