{"id":811532,"date":"2026-05-21T05:35:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T05:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/811532\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T05:35:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T05:35:50","slug":"pharmacy-closure-leaves-woodstock-without-place-to-fill-prescriptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/811532\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacy closure leaves Woodstock without place to fill prescriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AStanley Borucki, of Chester, waits in the car outside Springfield Pharmacy while his wife picks up his prescription. The pharmacy closed last Friday, but the business allowed Borucki\u2019s wife inside to pick the medication up on Monday, May 17, 2026 in Springfield. Photo by Jennifer Hauck\/Valley News<\/p>\n

This story by Clare Shanahan was first published<\/a> in the Valley News on May 18, 2026.<\/p>\n

WOODSTOCK \u2014\u00a0The pharmacy inside Ottauquechee Health Center on Pleasant Street is closed as of last Friday, along with two other Vermont pharmacies owned by Smilin\u2019 Steves Pharmacies.<\/p>\n

The Vermont pharmacy chain announced in a Facebook post just after 2 p.m. last Friday that the three locations would be permanently closed at the end of the day. Signs were also posted on the front doors of the stores in Woodstock, Springfield and Ludlow.<\/p>\n

Smilin\u2019 Steves\u2019 Rutland pharmacy and High Mountain Home Care LTC Pharmacy, also in Rutland, will stay open.<\/p>\n

The company urged customers to call the Rutland pharmacy at 802-775-2545 to transfer prescriptions to another pharmacy, access records or with any other questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe apologize for the suddenness of this,\u201d one of the companies\u2019 owners, Jeff Hochberg, said in a Monday interview. \u201cThis was out of our control and we are trying to do everything we can to help correct the situation here and now and forever as long as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"A sign on the door of the Springfield Pharmacy on Monday, May 18, 2026 in Springfield, Vt. Photo by Jennifer Hauck\/Valley News<\/p>\n

While the Facebook post from Smilin\u2019 Steves Pharmacies references \u201cunforeseen circumstances with our wholesaler,\u201d Hochberg declined to provide specific details about the situation that he said arose last week. He described it as a \u201cDavid-Goliath situation\u201d and \u201cwhere healthcare meets capitalism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really can\u2019t speak too much to the circumstances other than that they were totally unforeseen. This was not planned and we did everything we could to try to rectify the situation as quickly as possible,\u201d Hochberg said, adding that the situation is still unfolding and there may be \u201cmore to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also declined to explain why the Rutland pharmacy and home care pharmacy were able to continue operating.<\/p>\n

The Ottauquechee Pharmacy opened inside the Dartmouth Health-run\u00a0Ottauquechee Health Center in 2021<\/a>\u00a0after the 167-year-old Woodstock Pharmacy\u00a0closed its doors in 2020<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DH, which had no ownership or oversight of the pharmacy, learned about the closure on Friday, Keith Thomasset, the health network\u2019s chief pharmacy officer, said in a Monday statement.<\/p>\n

DH is \u201ccommitted to ensuring our patients have access to the care they need, including medications,\u201d and has started researching short-term and long-term solutions to address the pharmacy shortage in and around Woodstock, Thomasset said.<\/p>\n

But \u201copening a new pharmacy is not a quick process,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Options might include \u201cdeveloping a proposed plan to assist with acute care needs while (continuing) to utilize other Dartmouth Health system pharmacy services, such as our own specialty pharmacy and home delivery pharmacy services,\u201d or starting a new DH-owned pharmacy in the area, Thomasset said.<\/p>\n

With the closure, Woodstock joins the growing list of Upper Valley towns without a pharmacy. Amid a bankruptcy case,\u00a0Rite Aid closed all its locations last summer<\/a>, leaving Windsor and Bethel without pharmacies.<\/p>\n

Pharmacies around Vermont have closed over the last several years, often\u00a0citing poor margins as a result of low reimbursement rates<\/a>, according to reporting from VtDigger.<\/p>\n

Woodstock residents will have to order prescriptions by mail or travel 25 minutes to pharmacies in Lebanon, New Hampshire, including CVS, Hannaford, Price Chopper, Walmart and Walgreens or 35 minutes to Kinney Drugs in Randolph.<\/p>\n

For its part, Springfield still has a Kinney Drugs location and the recently-opened\u00a0North Star Health Pharmacy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hochberg encouraged Smilin\u2019 Steves customers to contact the Rutland pharmacy with any questions, adding \u201cthe system is designed for situations like this\u201d and customer data is still accessible.<\/p>\n

As for the employees, Hochberg said the company reached out to other pharmacies to see if anyone was hiring immediately. He did not know exactly how many employees were impacted by the closures, but said it is more than 10.<\/p>\n

When asked if there is any possibility of reopening the closed locations as the company works to resolve the situation, Hochberg said the \u201cfuture is very uncertain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is definitely a possibility of something in the future, pharmacy is not going anywhere, it\u2019s just got to change,\u201d Hochberg said.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\t\t\tby Valley News<\/a>
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 20, 2026, 7:07 pmMay 20, 2026, 7:07 pm\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Vermont\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stanley Borucki, of Chester, waits in the car outside Springfield Pharmacy while his wife picks up his prescription.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":811533,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[210,1141,1142,34510,27500,67,132,329742,68],"class_list":["post-811532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-partner-stories","tag-pharmacy","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-upper-valley","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116610951308541791","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}