Nova Scotia to fund overnight child-care spaces for Sydney health-care workers

The Nova Scotia government is launching a pilot project in Sydney to help health-care workers with child care.

The trial run starts this fall at Health Park Early Learning Centre, which is located near the Cape Breton Regional Hospital, with evening, weekend and overnight staffing for 12 new spaces.

Karla Bray, a parent with two children in the centre whose husband is a family doctor, said the project will help with recruitment and retention of professionals at a time when they are desperately needed.

"I don't think anyone in Nova Scotia is in a position to lose their doctor right now," she said. "I don't think we're in a position to have longer wait times. So an initiative like this is so amazing for health-care workers, so amazing for the children and so amazing for our community and our society at large."

The pilot project is expected to officially start later this fall, once policies, procedures and staff are in place and the government plans to review it after six months before deciding whether to roll it out provincewide.

Education and Early Childhood Development Minister Becky Druhan said funding will come from the federal-provincial child care agreement struck in 2021, but she could not say what the cost of the pilot project will be.

"Because it is a trial, a demonstration, part of this will be assessing how do we fund ventures like this and what does the costing look like," she said.

"The question is not whether we need spaces. We know we need spaces. We've needed spaces for decades.

"The question is really about the how and the what and the specific details around where do those spaces need to be. What are the hours? Those are really local and community questions."

Druhan said the province needs more than 9,000 new spaces and the government has created 2,000 so far.

It has also boosted pay for early childhood educators and has begun consulting with parents and primary caregivers across the province to determine where spaces are needed.

The pilot project in Sydney will have wider benefits for those needing child care, the minister said.

"What this will do is enable this centre to open its doors to more kids, because they have extended hours, so that's a fantastic opportunity and will be great for both the health-care workers and the broader community, as well."

Helen Gamble, owner of the Health Park centre, said the extended hours will help it reach capacity, which will benefit all those people needing child care.

"I think that's going to be a big hit ... for the parents," she said. "People work weekends."

Gamble said the centre has a waiting list and some of those parents would be health-care workers, but it's difficult to say how many spaces they will need.

"We're building the plane and flying it at the same time, so we really don't know until we get going what the demand is actually going to be."

Now that the announcement is out, Gamble said she is excited to start advertising for staff.

"I believe in it," she said. "I've wanted to do it for a long time, so I think I won't have any problem."

Dr. Kayla Choo Chong, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Sydney whose husband is also a physician at the hospital, said with two children in child care, it's been important to have family support.

She said it will go a long way toward retention of health-care workers.

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