Gendebien Speaks Out at Public Hearing on Carthage Area Hospital Service Closures

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Wednesday, July 29, 2026

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Gendebien Speaks Out at Public Hearing on Carthage Area Hospital Service Closures

CARTHAGE, N.Y. — Yesterday, Blake Gendebien, dairy farmer and candidate for NY-21, delivered public comments last night at a hearing held by North Star Health Alliance (NSHA) regarding the proposed closure of the Sleep Center at Carthage Area Hospital and primary care and physical therapy services at the Philadelphia Medical Center.

In his remarks, Gendebien spoke directly to the impact these closures will have on North Country families and on the healthcare workers who provide these services, warning that the loss of primary care access pushes patients toward emergency rooms instead of catching problems early, and that patients displaced by closures put added strain on neighboring hospitals and clinics already stretched thin.

“When these services close, we don’t just lose access to care, we lose those jobs, and we lose people who may have to leave the North Country to find work in their field,” Gendebien said. “I stand with those nurses and healthcare workers.”

Gendebien also connected the closures to Medicaid funding cuts, which he said are the underlying reason rural hospitals and health centers across the region continue to lose services.

Gendebien noted that Carthage is not an isolated case. Tonight residents will gather for a similar hearing regarding Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center’s maternity services, underscoring what he described as a pattern of service loss playing out across the North Country at the same time.

Read his full remarks below:

Thank you for holding this hearing.

Every closure is a loss of good jobs in this community. The people who work at the Philadelphia Medical Center are skilled professionals who chose to build their careers here, taking care of their neighbors. When these services close, we don’t just lose access to care, we lose those jobs, and we lose people who may have to leave the North Country to find work in their field. I stand with those nurses and healthcare workers.

I also want to talk about what losing primary care actually means for a family. It’s not just an inconvenience. It’s the difference between catching something early with your doctor and ending up in an emergency room because you had nowhere else to go. Primary care is supposed to be the front door to the healthcare system, and when that door closes, people don’t stop getting sick, they just end up sicker, and they end up costing the system more before anyone catches it.

When a service like this closes, it doesn’t disappear, it gets pushed onto other facilities. Patients don’t stop needing care; they now have to drive further to get it, and the hospitals and clinics that absorb them take on more patients without more staff, more beds, or more capacity. 

This region has already seen too much of this. Rural hospitals and health centers across the North Country keep losing pieces. A service here, a department there. And I think we have to be honest about why this keeps happening. These hospitals run on Medicaid. When Medicaid funding gets cut, this is what it looks like — not a number in a budget, but a service gone and people out of work.

Tomorrow, people are going to be standing in a room just like this one regarding Claxton-Hepburn, having this same conversation about potentially losing their OB unit. Families in this region are going to have to drive even further just to safely deliver a baby. That’s a pattern, and it will only continue to happen if we don’t restore funding.

Thank you.

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