LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — NY-19 Rep. Josh Riley came to Sullivan County on Monday, October 6 to hold a panel discussion asking about the state of health care in rural NY. Once there, in addition to talking about health care and other community needs, Riley faced questioning from constituents about his response to tragedies in Gaza. 

As of Friday, October 10, a ceasefire has taken effect in Gaza, according to AP news. This town hall took place before the ceasefire occurred. 

Gaza

Outside the venue prior to the town hall, attendees, dressed in keffiyeh scarves, held faux babies and pro-Palestine signs. 

Eric Feinblatt, one of those so attired, said to the River Reporter that the demonstration was a follow-up to an ad hoc walk through the Callicoon Farmers’ Market held the day before. 

“Josh’s trip to Israel was so ill timed and demonstrated such bad instincts in supporting an ongoing genocide,” said Feinblatt. 

Riley visited Israel in August, meeting with regional leaders including Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Mustafa and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, according to a statement on his Facebook page. At the time, Riley pointed to the “severe and undeniable humanitarian crisis in Gaza” and called out Hamas as “inflicting unimaginable suffering in the region.”

“As upstate New Yorkers, I hope we can give each other the benefit of the doubt and start from our shared values, knowing that we all want the suffering to end and none of us supports violence against anyone because of how they worship,” Riley said in the statement. “And we should recognize that we can stand with our allies and their people when they are under attack while still speaking honestly (and critically) to their government—just as we’d expect them to do to us.”

At the start of the town hall’s question-and-answer period, a woman stood up from the audience and began shouting at Riley, asking why the U.S. was supporting a genocide and why Riley visited Israel. 

Riley insisted that he wanted to answer the woman’s questions, but that the town hall had a process they had to stick to to have a respectful discussion. The woman continued calling on Riley to answer the question, joined by other voices from the crowd. Eventually, Riley left the room; separately, so did the woman.

When Riley returned, during the Q&A section of the town hall, he took a question asking how he felt about what was happening in Gaza. 

Riley called for a ceasefire, and said that the suffering seen in the region is “unbelievable.” “This war has to stop,” he said.

Riley said he thinks about many of the issues he sees in Washington through his lens as a dad to two little kids. The other day, his five-year-old got a nosebleed, he said. “When you’re a parent, something like that, something as simple as a bloody nose, your stomach clenches. You see these images of the parents who are doing everything they possibly can every second of the day just to keep their kids alive? I cannot imagine that pain as a parent, and it has to end.”

He added that the framework he sees for a ceasefire includes getting hostages out of Gaza and a massive surge of humanitarian aid. 

“I know it seems so far away, after the last two years of his horrific war where innocent Israelis and innocent Palestinians were caught in this horrific war, it seems further away than its ever been, but we have to come out of this with a real plan that allows Palestinians and Israelis to live side by side in peace and with security, because at the end of the day that is all that anybody wants,” he said.

Community care

During the panel-discussion portion of the town hall, Riley assembled a panel of four regional experts to discuss the state of rural health care. 

“Health care should be a civic right in this country,” said Riley. 

Riley focused his discussion points on the stated need to undo the damage done to health care by the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which removed nearly $1 trillion in funding from the Medicaid program nationwide. 

Riley asked Laura Quigley, Sullivan County Commissioner Of Community Resources, to talk about the broader challenges faced by the community, and how those challenges intersect with health care. 

Quigley said that access to affordable housing is a significant issue in Sullivan County. The county doesn’t have a lot of housing stock, and rents have gone up for those apartments that do exist, she said. 

At the same time, housing was only one component of what Quigley described as a “very fragile house of cards” in which people had to live. 

Housing costs have risen, she said. The county faces a food crisis, with high prices, areas of low access and coming cuts to the SNAP program. Electric costs have risen, with NYSEG and other utilities asking for ever higher rates. Transportation costs are up, with higher rates of insurance and costs of repairs. Child care subsidies for New York State have been eliminated. 

“That has put families in this very fragile house of cards,” she said. 

The county tries to connect people to what resources are out there, with staffers doing whatever is necessary to get people the help they need, said Quigley. On a broader scale, she said, the country is working to bolster the efforts of regional groups working to address food security, and helping people get transportation. 

The biggest gap in addressing these issues is funding, with rural areas facing difficulties competing for grant dollars with more urban areas, she said. 

“I also feel that one of the things that happened is we have lost our sense of community,” said Quigley. “Everything is bigger and centralized. Health care is centralized; your pharmacy is centralized; the supermarkets are centralized.” She said it’s important to figure out how to bring that sense of community back. 

Also participating in the town hall were Dr. William Fredette, co-director of the Bassett School-Based Health Program; Stephen Kelly, president and CEO of Ellenville Regional Hospital; and Jaylynn Garelick, a licensed practical nurse with the Bassett Healthcare Network. 

Educator and community leader Dr. Sean Wall-Carty moderated the town hall.