SPRINGFIELD, Vt. – North Star Health will hold grand opening celebrations at three new in-house pharmacies this month.
The facilities are at the North Star Health locations in Charlestown, Springfield, Vt., and Londonderry, Vt., according to a Monday news release. There will be “full-day celebrations” at each location on Sept. 22, including ribbon-cutting ceremonies and a community lunch at 1:30 p.m.
All three pharmacies are open 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The locations in Springfield and Londonderry are closed daily from 1 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
North Star Health announced its plans to open the pharmacies last summer and held “soft openings” in November 2025, Jessica Everlith, a spokesperson for the health network, confirmed Monday. Though the facilities have been open since then, the health network has been working through the process of contracting with insurance providers and can now accept “most major insurances,” Everlith said.
“We’re seeing more and more communities lose access to local pharmacies, and that loss creates real consequences for people’s health,” said Joshua Dufresne, CEO of North Star Health, in a news release. “We want everyone to have a trusted pharmacy nearby, with a friendly, knowledgeable pharmacist who knows them and is connected to the rest of their care. That is exactly what we’ve built.”
The Upper Valley and surrounding communities have been steadily losing pharmacies over the last several years.
Six Rite-Aid locations in the Upper Valley closed in 2025, including in Windsor and Bethel where there are now no pharmacies. Woodstock’s only pharmacy inside the Ottauquechee Health Center on Pleasant Street also closed abruptly in May, along with two other Vermont pharmacies owned by Smilin’ Steves Pharmacies. In June, a Woodstock resident proposed temporarily replacing the pharmacy with an automated locker system for prescription pickup.
The trend isn’t limited to the Upper Valley. A March 2025 Yale study published in JAMA Network Open found that 57.1 million Americans — 17.7% of the population in the contiguous U.S. — live in a “pharmacy desert,” meaning the drive to the nearest pharmacy takes longer than is typical for a supermarket trip in that area.
