POUGHKEEPSIE – Beginning today, April 1, Vassar Brothers Medical Center (VBMC) will change the way pediatric patients are treated at the Poughkeepsie hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nuvance Health, the parent company of VBMC has partnered with regional children’s hospitals to care for inpatient pediatric patients at those hospitals. VBMC spokesman John Nelson said that the Poughkeepsie hospital emergency department will continue to care for pediatric patients then, “if a patient under the age of 18 needs to be admitted, they will be transferred to an accepting children’s hospital of the parent’s choice.”
According to Nelson, the local pediatricians and emergency department physicians are familiar with the children’s hospitals serving the region and they will discuss all of the options with the parents when a pediatric patient requires admission.
VBMC has been gradually stopping admissions and discharging existing patients when they are ready to increase the availability of rooms at the hospital.
Regionally, the Maria Ferrari Children’s Hospital at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla and the Bernard and Millie Duker Children’s Hospital at the Albany Medical Center are the two largest pediatric treatment hospitals. The Mid-Hudson Regional Medical Center in Poughkeepsie does not have a pediatric ward.
