In the summer of 1996, we drove into Sullivan County for the first time in a Winnebago we had outfitted ourselves. Each summer, thousands of families from downstate move north to the Catskills. We were following our patients with the belief that a hundred miles should not interrupt a child’s asthma care or a mother’s prenatal visits. The plan was simple: park where our patients were, care for them, and drive home.

One Van, One Doctor

Medical care was hard to find in the mountains. Pediatrician Dr. Bruce Gribetz agreed to the “crazy idea” of spending the summer making rounds among the camps and colonies where our patients were staying.

One van, one doctor, and a schedule that was more hope than guarantee. If the first stop had a long line or a complicated case, every stop after it ran late. I drove ahead to tell people the mobile was coming because no one here knew who we were yet. On the first day, we saw twenty patients. We celebrated each one.

We quickly learned the shortage was neither seasonal nor confined to our community. Residents were driving the same distances, waiting the same weeks, and going without the same care. The shortage belonged to the county, not the summer.

An employee who grew up meeting the mobile, still remembers the words: “The Refuah mobile is here.” Most of all, she remembers the relief of finally being looked after.

Thirty Summers Later

The need quickly outgrew the van. In 1999, we opened our first fixed location in Youngsville. A year later, we added another mobile.

In 2011, we bought a beautiful schoolhouse in South Fallsburg with dreams of renovating it into a permanent medical home for our new community. When inspections showed asbestos, we paused our renovation plans but didn’t pause our growth. We added a modular unit at the site and began providing primary care, pediatrics, and podiatry. As need grew, we added another modular. And another. In 2013, we opened a full-service pharmacy. X-ray, lab, and optical followed.

In 2023, we added a satellite site up the road in Liberty, offering primary care, pediatrics and optical. In 2025, we opened Care4Her in South Fallsburg, tailoring urgent care to women’s needs, because a woman experiencing sudden bleeding should not have to choose between an emergency room and a three-week wait. At a time when nine percent of rural counties have lost obstetric services entirely, that choice is becoming dangerously common.

Today, our Sullivan County network provides primary and pediatric care, orthopedics, podiatry, imaging, walk-in urgent care in South Fallsburg, optical services, home visits, hospital liaisons, and no-cost transportation.

Those services share one clinical network, and that matters more than the length of the list. A screening that ends with a referral is a promise of continued care. Because our mobile units and fixed sites work from the same records and the same clinicians, a patient with an abnormal result can move directly from screening to diagnosis to treatment. No one leaves with the burden of finding the next step alone.

No one is turned away because they cannot pay. As a federally qualified health center, we care for people with private insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, or no coverage at all. That promise wasn’t added when we came north; it was made when RefuahHealth was founded, and it travels with us each time we open a door.

A Permanent Address

For over a decade, we delivered much of this care from a space never meant to be permanent — our triad of modulars alongside the schoolhouse we had hoped to give a second life. The county’s needs have outgrown those modulars.

The old schoolhouse is now in the process of coming down. In its place, we are raising a permanent medical home tailored to the needs of local residents and families. The center will bring primary care, women’s health, behavioral health, urgent care, and an on-site pharmacy under one roof. A portion of the project will be funded through the USDA, secured with the support of Congressman Josh Riley, and Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer.

In rural communities, care is lost in the gaps: a day off work, a ride that falls through, a specialist visit that waits. Every additional handoff makes the next appointment harder to keep. Bringing these services together in South Fallsburg shortens the distance between a problem and its treatment.

A van can always drive away, as proven with the 1996 Winnebago and all eight mobile units today. A health center puts down roots.

Thirty summers ago, we arrived here as strangers, and this county treated us like neighbors. We came for our patients. We stayed for Sullivan County. Caring for this community has been an honor, and the health center we build in South Fallsburg will deepen those roots.