Orange County hospitals get $500,000 to improve pediatric emergency care

Parents whose child lands in an Orange County emergency room may not have to wait as long for a transfer to a larger pediatric center if local hospitals use a new $500,000 state-backed readiness push to sharpen how they treat sick and injured children.

The money, announced in early April 2026, will support pediatric emergency training, equipment and protocols at Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh, Garnet Health in the Town of Wallkill, St. Anthony Community Hospital in Warwick and Bon Secours Community Hospital in Port Jervis. Three of the hospitals are set to receive roughly $125,000 apiece, while Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall is getting $63,000 from state Sen. James Skoufis and $62,000 from Assemblymember Jonathan Jacobson.

The funding is aimed at a countywide readiness gap that has long defined emergency care for children in smaller community hospitals. Those facilities treat children every day, but they may see relatively few high-acuity pediatric cases, the kind that can quickly test whether staff have the right equipment, protocols and training in place before a child needs to be stabilized or moved.

Officials tied the Orange County grants to New York’s Always Ready for Children Pediatric Recognition Program, a state and regional system for emergency departments committed to improving pediatric care. To qualify, emergency departments must participate in the National Pediatric Readiness Project, complete a readiness assessment and designate a pediatric emergency care coordinator. Those are the benchmarks that will show whether the hospitals are moving from general emergency care toward a more formal pediatric response.

The stakes are high. National pediatric-readiness guidance says high readiness is associated with up to a 76% reduction in mortality risk for critically ill children. Pediatric-readiness groups also cite research suggesting more than 2,100 children’s lives could be saved each year if every emergency department reached high readiness.

For Orange County families, the practical question is whether a child with a serious injury or sudden illness can be treated safely and quickly in Newburgh, Wallkill, Warwick or Port Jervis instead of starting with a transfer elsewhere. The new funding is intended to make those local decisions safer by improving what happens in the first minutes inside the emergency department.

The National Pediatric Readiness Project’s 2026 nationwide assessment was scheduled to close May 31, putting added pressure on hospitals to complete the work and show measurable progress. In Orange County, the grant dollars are only the start; the real test will be whether the four hospitals can prove they are better prepared when a child’s emergency does not wait for a transfer.