Larger health center welcomed in Unity

UNITY – It was a chipper group of residents who turned out to tour the town’s new health center and meet its newest doctor.

The New Horizons Health Care facility will be headed by Dr. Gavin M. Ducker, who made a special flight from his practice in Manchester, England, to attend an open house earlier this week.

Ducker said his wife, Edwina, and their three young boys were looking forward to their new home in America. Manchester is a large industrial city in the English Midlands, a far cry from this rural agricultural community in the Waldo County heartland overlooking the Sebasticook River.

Ducker, 38, noted that both he and his wife grew up in small towns and were looking forward to the adventure of making a home in similar circumstances in a new country.

“We wanted to get out in a rural situation,” said Ducker. “We really wanted to get away from the city.”

Ducker said he was already looking for a house in the area and expected to move his family to America after the first of the year.

He said he was recruited to the position and focused his relocation efforts on New England after being advised of the need by a friend who is practicing in New Hampshire.

New Horizons is affiliated with Inland Hospital in Waterville and has operated a health center in town since 1990. Last month, the health center moved to much larger quarters in the former Fleet Bank building on Main Street.

Inland Hospital President Wilfred Addison said the health center was able to double its size by moving to the new location.

He said the move occurred with help from local businessman Bert Clifford, the building’s owner. Clifford was amenable to renovating the building to meet the health center’s needs.

Addison also credited the local volunteer community booster group, the Unity Barn Raisers, with convincing the hospital to expand its services in town.

“This has really been a broad community effort and that is what makes it particularly gratifying,” Addison said.

Ducker will serve as director of New Horizons Health Care and, along with Dr. Charles B. Kriegel, the longtime staff physician, and physician’s assistant Robert H. Morgan, will work full time in serving the medical needs of the residents of northwestern Waldo County.

In addition, Addison said, the health center will have a radiology unit and will schedule prearranged office hours for an orthopedic surgeon, obstetrician-gynecologist, nurse-midwife, and proctologist weekly.

“This will substantially increase the services available to the Unity area,” Addison said. “Unity is growing as a center of this rural area and we want to be a part of it.”