New Report Analyzes Decline in Access to Quality Patient Care in New York’s North Country
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, Mar. 3, 2026
Contact: Joseph Celestin | press@nysna.org | 518-776-8337
Andrea Penman-Lomeli | press@nysna.org | 347-559-3169
New Report Analyzes Decline in Access to Quality Patient Care in New York’s North Country
Decades of Hospital Consolidation, Service Reductions, and Bed Closures Dramatically Reduced Access to Care in Rural New York
Report Sounds Alarm on Federal Funding Cuts that Will Strain Hospital Finances, Recommends Hospitals and Policymakers Act Now to Prevent Service Cuts and Closures
Plattsburgh, NY—The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) released a report analyzing the state of patient care in New York’s rural North Country. Decades of systemic disinvestment, hospital consolidation, service reductions, and bed closures, have eroded access to care in the region.
The North Country, defined in the report as Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Lewis, and St. Lawrence counties, is the largest region in New York State, spanning more than 11,000 square miles. North Country residents are also older, less diverse, and have a median household income lower than that of other New Yorkers. Hospitals and healthcare systems are major players in the region, not just in healthcare, but also the regional economy; they are three of the top major employers in the North Country.
Despite the clear need for robust healthcare services in the region, hospitals and healthcare systems have continuously reduced both services and beds over the last decade, making it much harder for residents to access essential healthcare services. Between 2013 and 2024, over half of the North Country’s hospitals were designated as “Critical Access Hospital,” adesignation that can increase revenue for rural hospitals but restricts hospitals to having no more than 25 acute care beds. North Country residents lost 226 hospital beds over this period, including nearly half of their pediatric beds and 13% of their maternal health beds.
Read the full report.
The report also sounds the alarm on the impacts of the federal cuts to healthcare funding caused by the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act and the strain those cuts will place on safety netand rural hospitals. The bill, which cuts access to Medicaid in several ways, will increase both the number of uninsured New Yorkers and the amount of uncompensated care hospitals provide, in turn driving up the cost of health insurance premiums for all. New York hospitals are projected to lose nearly $1.4 billion in funding because of federal funding cuts, which will threaten the financial stability of rural hospitals that depend heavily on Medicaid revenue. Historically, financial strain on North Country hospitals has led to consolidation, which, in turn, has led to the current access to care crisis.
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans, RN, BSN, CCRN, said: “NYSNA members care for the North Country, but a decade of service reductions and hospital consolidations has left New York’s rural communities with extremely limited access to care, and that is unacceptable. All New Yorkers deserve access to safe, quality patient care, and NYSNA members are readyto make that happen, but we can’t do it alone. Hospitals must do more for these communities—and stop prioritizing profits over patients.”
NYSNA Second Vice President and Adirondack Medical Center nurse Bill Schneider, BSN, RN, CCRN, said: “As a nurse in the North Country, it has been extremely disheartening to see how difficult it has become to access healthcare close to home. North Country residents deserve better from the hospitals and healthcare systems that claim to serve our communities. We deserve safe, quality patient care, and we shouldn’t have to travel for hours or across hundreds of miles to get it.”
Victoria Davis-Courson, RN, MSN, NYSNA Eastern Regional Director and member at UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, said: “This report sheds new light on the ways that access to care has been decimated in the North Country over the past decade—and the role that hospitals and healthcare systems have played in this crisis. It’s time for our hospitals to stop prioritizing profits over patients and start investing in the communities they serve. NYSNA members will never stop advocating for our patients, and this report will be another tool to educate policymakers to help us ensure that all New Yorkers have access to the care they deserve.”
NYSNA urges hospital administrators, legislators and policymakers to read the report and address the ongoing patient care crisis in the North Country. Instead of continuing with short-sighted healthcare service cuts and closures that will further reduce access to quality care, NYSNA recommends:
- Implement stronger oversight of service and bed closures to ensure access to quality care.
- Provide fair hospital funding by increasing reimbursement rates for essential healthcare services and creating additional financial incentives for hospitals to operate these services.
- Preserve healthcare coverage by taking action to minimize the loss of health insurance coverage from the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act.
- Invest in the healthcare workforce by providing fair wages, affordable benefits, and safe working conditions for healthcare workers, and working with educational institutions to restore local, clinical training programs.
NYSNA members at seven hospitals in the North Country have been bargaining for fair contracts since the Fall. In February, NYSNA members at Carthage Area Hospital, Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center, and Samaritan Medical Center settled fair contracts that protect patient care for the communities they serve.
NYSNA members at Adirondack Medical Center, UVM-Alice Hyde, UVM-Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital, and UVM-Elizabethtown Community Hospital continue to fight for fair contracts that include enforceable safe staffing, protections from workplace violence, and the respectful wages and benefits necessary to recruit and retain nurses to care for North Country residents.
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The New York State Nurses Association represents more than 42,000 members in New York State. We are New York’s largest union and professional association for registered nurses. NYSNA is an affiliate of National Nurses United, AFL-CIO, the country's largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses, with more than 225,000 members nationwide.